LIBRARY 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

GIRT    OR 


B.OLOGY 

Received    OCT  27  1892 


^  ccessions  No.Jf&       .      Shelf  No.  . 


IN  PRESS, 

AND    WILL    BE    PUBLISHED    IN    NOVEMBER. 

BOSTON  MONDA  Y  LECTURES: 
TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

BY  JOSEPH  COOK. 
One  volume  I2mo,  uniform  with  this  volume. 

JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  &  CO.      -     -     -      PUBLISHERS. 


PLATE  I.      (AFTER  BEALE  & 

MODE  OF  ORIGIN  OF  LIVING  CENTRES  IN  ALREADY  EXISTING 
BIOPLASM. 


Fig.l 


Fig. 2. 


./ 


Minute  particle  of  bioplasm   from  living  pus 

corpuscle,  showing  the  different  forms  which 

it  assumed  in   the    course   of  five  seconds. 

X  2800. 


Production  of  formed  material,  layer  within  layer, 
ind  it«  -iccumulaiion  upon  the 'surface  of  bioplasm, 
u  in  an  epithelial  cell. 

Fig.  3- 


New  Tendon.          Old      Tendon. 


A  m'.icu's  corpuscle     represented  in 
the  living  state,    magnified    by   the 
•.SCO  diametw,  showing   alterations   iu 
form  duiin$  one  minute. 

Fig-  5. 


Fig.  6. 


Oermina!   spots,  with  new  centres  (nucleoli) 
within  them   a«i-i  rnor^ mi uiite germinal  spots 
in  th<s  intervals  k»»twfleri  them.   Ma<>niBftd 
6.50  tiia  meters' 


Moflt  minute  ovarian  ova  undergoing  develop- 
ment, in  th«  midst  of  a  delicate  tissue  con- 
stituting the  ovary  and  composed  ot  cells. 
Tbe  ofum  seems  to  arise  by  the  ftrowth  ot'  one 
of  these.  Ma*U!3«d  &IO  diameters 


. 


2?0  DEVOKSHiHE  ST  B&.9T 


BOSTON  MONDA  Y  LECTURES. 


BIOLOGY, 


WITH  PRELUDES  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 


BY  JOSEPH   COOK. 

M 


"Wie  ausnahmslos  universell  die  Ausdehnung,  und  zugleich  wie 
vollig  untergeordnet  die  Bedeutung  der  Sendung  ist  welche  der  Me- 
chanismus  in  dem  Baue  der  Welt  zu  erfullen  hat."  —  HERMANN  LOTZE. 


THREE     COLORED    PLATES 

AFTER  BEALE  AND  FREY. 


JAMES    R.   OSGOOD   AND    COMPANY, 

(Late  Ticknor  &  Fields,  and  Fields,  Osgood,  &  Co.) 
1877. 


BIOLOGY 
LIBRARY 

G 


H 

COPYRIGHT,  1877, 

BY    JOSEPH    COOK. 

Att  Sights  Reserved. 


FRANKLIN   PRESS: 

RAND,   AVERY,   AND  COMPANY, 

BOSTON. 


INTKODUCTION. 


THE  object  of.  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures  is  to  present  the 
results  of  the  freshest  German,  English,  and  American  scholar- 
ship on  the  more  important  and  difficult  topics  concerning  the 
relation  of  Keligion  and  Science.  They  were  begun  in  the  Meio- 
naon  in  1875  ;  and  the  audiences,  gathered  at  noon  on  Mondays, 
were  of  such  size  as  to  need  to  be  transferred  to  Park-street 
Church  in  October,  1876,  and  thence  to  Tremont  Temple,  which 
was  often  more  than  full  during  the  winter  of  1876-77. 

The  audiences  contained  large  numbers  of  ministers,  teachers, 
and  other  educated  men.  The  thirty-four  lectures  of  the  last 
season  were  stenographically  reported  in  the  Boston  Daily  Ad- 
vertiser, and  most  of  them  were  republished  in  full  in  New  York 
and  London. 

The  lectures  on  Biology  oppose  the  materialistic,  and  not  the 
theistic,  theory  of  Evolution.  (See  p.  111.) 

The  lectures  on  Transcendentalism  contain  a  discussion  of  the 
views  of  Theodore  Parker. 

The  Committee  having  charge  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures 
for  the  coming  year  consists  of  the  following  gentlemen:  — 


His  Excellency  A.  H.  RICE, 
Governor  of  Massachusetts. 

Hon.  ALPHEUS  HARDY. 

Hon.  WILLIAM  CLAFLFN,  Ex- 
Governor  of  Massachusetts. 

Prof.  E.  P.  GOULD,  Newton  The- 
ological  Institute. 

Rev.  J.  L.  WITHROW,  D.D. 

REUBEN  CROOKE, 

Rev.  WILLIAM  M.  BAKER,  D.D. 

RUSSELL  STURGIS,  Jr. 


Prof.  EDWARDS  A.  PARK,  LL.D., 
Andover  Theological  Seminary. 

Eight  Rev.  BISHOP  FOSTER. 

Prof.  L.  T.  TOWNSEND,  Boston 
University. 

ROBERT  GILCHRIST. 

SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

Rev.  Z.  GRAY,  D.D.,  Episcopal 
Theological  School,  Cambridge. 

WILLIAM  B.  MERRILL. 

M.  R.  DEMING,  Secretary. 


E.  M.  MCPHERSON. 

HENKT  F.  DURANT,  Chairman. 
BOSTON,  September,  1877. 


PUBLISHEBS'  NOTE. 


Is  the  careful  reports  of  Mr.  Cook's  Lectures  printed 
in  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  were  included  by  the 
stenographer  sundry  expressions  (applause,  &c.)  indicat- 
ing the  immediate  and  varying  impressions  with  which  the 
Lectures  were  received.  Though  these  reports  have  been 
thoroughly  revised  by  the  author,  the  publishers  have 
thought  it  advisable  to  retain  these  expressions.  Mr. 
Cook's  audiences  included,  in  large  numbers,  representa- 
tives of  the  broadest  scholarship,  the  profoundest  philoso- 
phy, the  acutest  scientific  research,  and  generally  of  the 
finest  intellectual  culture,  of  Boston  and  New  England ; 
and  it  has  seemed  admissible  to  allow  the  larger  assembly 
to  which  these  Lectures  are  now  addressed  to  know  how 
they  were  received  by  such  audiences  as  those  to  vhich 
they  were  originally  delivered. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURES. 

L    HUXLEY  AXD  TYXDALL  ox  EVOLUTION    ....  1 

IL    THE  CONCESSIONS  OF  EVOLUTIONISTS 35 

m.    THE  COXCESSIOXS  OF  EVOLUTIONISTS 51 

IV.    THE  iliCBOscopE  AXD  MATEBIALISM 73 

V.    LOTZE,  BEALE.  AXD  HUXLEY  ox  LIVING  TISSUES  95 

VL    LIFE  OB  MECHAXISM — WHICH? 121 

VIL    DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?     IXVOLUTIOX  AND  EVO- 
LUTION      137 

VLLL    DOES  DEATH  EXD  ALL?     THE  XEBYES  AND  THE 

SOUL 161 

IX.    DOES  DEATH  EXD  AT.T.  ?    Is  Ixsnxcr  IMMORTAL  ?  191 

X.    DOES  DEATH  EXD  ATT.  ?    BAIX'S  MATEKIALISM    .  217 

XL    AUTOMATIC  AXD  IXFLUEXTIAL  XEBVES    ....  245 

XTT.    EMEBSOX'S  VIEWS  ox  IMMOBTALITY 273 

XTTT.    ULKICI  ox  THE  SPLBTTUAL  BODY 299 

PRELUDES. 

PACK 

L      GlFT-EXTERPBISES  IX  POLITICS .  95 

IL    SAFE  POPULAB  FBEEDOM 161 

EEL    DAXIEL  WEBSTEB'S  DEATH 191 

IV.    CTVIL-SEBVICE  REFOBM 217 

V.    AUTHOBITIES  ox  BIOLOGY 245 

VL    BOSTOX  AXD  EDEXBUBGH 273 

VIL    THE  GULF  CUBBEXT  ix  HISTOBY  i\>3 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTKATIONS, 


PLATE 

I.    ORIGIN  OF  LIVING  CENTRES  IN  ALREADY  EXISTING 

BIOPLASM Frontispiece 

PAGE 

II.    GROWTH  AND  MOVEMENTS  OF  BIOPLASTS 121 

III.    DISTRIBUTION  OF  ULTIMATE  NERVE  FIBRES  TO  MUS- 
CLE .  245 


I. 

HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION. 

THE    FORTY-SIXTH    LECTURE    IN    THE    BOSTON    MONDAY   LEC- 
TURESHIP, DELIVERED   IN   THE  MEIONAON  OCT.  2,  1876. 


"NONE  of  the  processes  of  Nature,  since  the  time  when  Nature 
began,  have  produced  the  slightest  difference  in  the  properties  of 
any  molecule.  We  are,  therefore,  unable  to  ascribe  either  the  ex- 
istence of  the  molecules,  or  the  identity  of  their  properties,  to  the 
operation  of  any  of  the  causes  which  we  call  natural.  The  quality 
of  each  molecule  gives  it  the  essential  character  of  a  manufactured 
article,  and  precludes  the  idea  of  its  being  eternal  and  self-existent." 
—  PROFESSOR  CLERK  MAXWELL,  "Lecture  delivered  before  the 
British  Association  at  Bradford,"  in  Nature,  vol.  viii.  p.  441. 

"  THERE  is  a  wider  teleology  which  is  not  touched  by  the  doctrine 
of  evolution,  but  is  actually  based  upon  the  fundamental  proposi- 
tion of  evolution.  The  teleological  and  the  mechanical  views  of 
Nature  are  not  necessarily  mutually  exclusive.  The  teleologist  can 
always  defy  the  evolutionist  to  disprove  that  the  primordial  molec- 
ular arrangement  was  not  intended  to  evolve  the  phenomena  of  the 
universe."  —  PROFESSOR  T.  H.  HUXLEY  in  The  Academy  for  Octo- 
ber, 1869,  No.  1,  p.  13. 


BIOLOGY. 


i. 

HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION. 

IN  1868  Professor  Huxley,  in  an  elaborate  paper 
in  the  Microscopical  Journal,  announced  his  belief 
that  the  gelatinous  substance  found  in  the  ooze  of 
the  beds  of  the  deep  seas  is  a  sheet  of  living  matter 
extending  around  the  globe.  The  stickiness  of  the 
deep-sea  mud,  he  maintained,  is  due  to  innumera- 
ble lumps  of  a  transparent,  jelly-like  substance, 
each  lump  consisting  of  granules,  coccoliths,  and 
foreign  bodies,  embedded  in  a  transparent,  colorless, 
and  structureless  matrix.  It  was  his  serious  claim 
that  these  granule-heaps,  and  the  transparent  gelati- 
nous matter  in  which  they  are  embedded,  represent 
masses  of  protoplasm. 

1.  To  this  amazingly  strategic  and  haughtily 
trumpeted  substance  found  at  the  lowest  bottoms 
of  the  oceans  Huxley  gave  the  scientific  name 
Bathybius,  from  two  Greek  words  meaning  deep 

I 


2  BIOLOGY. 

and  sea,  and  assumed  that  it  was  in  the  past,  and 
would  be  in  the  future,  the  progenitor  of  all  the 
life  on  the  planet.  "  Bathybius,"  was  his  language, 
44  is  a  vast  sheet  of  living  matter  enveloping  the 
whole  earth  beneath  the  seas." 

2.  No  less  a  man  than  David  Friedrich  Strauss, 
who,  in  1872,  wrote  "  The  Old  Faith  and  New," 
his  last  work,  used  Bathybius  as  a  presumably  trium- 
phant keystone  of  the  physiological  portion  of  his 
argument  against  the  belief  in  the  supernatural  (The 
Old  Faith  and  New,  sect.  48).  This  deep-sea  ooze 
he  made  the  bridge  between  the  inorganic  and  the 
organic,  "At  least  two .. miracles  or  revelations," 
wrote  Jean  Paul  Richter,  face  to  face  with  the 
French  Revolution,  "  remain  for  you  uncontested  in 
this  age,  which  deadens  sound  with  unreverberating 
materials.  They  resemble  an  Old  and  a  New  Testa- 
ment, and  are  these,  —  the  birth  of  finite  being  and 
the  birth  of  life  within  the  hard  wood  of  matter.  In 
one  inexplicable  every  other  is  involved,  and  one 
miracle  annihilates  a  whole  philosophy "  (Levana, 
sect.  38).  It  is  very  noteworthy,  that,  according  to 
Strauss's  own  final  admission  in  1872,  miracle  must 
be  confessed  to  have  occurred  once  at  least  at  the 
introduction  of  life,  unless  some  method  of  filling  up 
the  chasm  between  the  dead  and  the  living  forms 
of  matter  can  be  found.  Bathybius  was  to  occupy 
this  gap.  "  Huxley,"  wrote  Strauss,  "  has  discovered 
the  Bathybius,  a  shining  heap  of  jelly  on  the  sea- 
bottom  ;  Hackel,  what  he  has  called  the  Moneres, 
structureless  clots  of  an  albuminous  carbon,  which, 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALJL  ON  EVOLUTION.  3 

although  inorganic  in  their  constitution,  yet  are  all 
capable  of  nutrition  and  accretion.  By  these  the 
chasm  may  be  said  to  be  bridged,  and  the  transition 
effected  from  the  inorganic  to  the  organic.  As  long 
as  the  contrast  between  inorganic  and  organic,  lifeless 
and  living  nature,  was  understood  as  an  absolute  one, 
as  long  as  the  conception  of  a  special  vital  force  was 
retained,  there  was  no  possibility  of  spanning  the  chasm 
without  the  aid  of  a  miracle  "  (The  Old  Faith  and 
New,  sect.  48).  As  devout  believers  in  Bathybius, 
educated  men  —  Strauss  affirmed'  in  the  name  of 
what  he  mistook  for  German  culture  —  could  no 
longer  be  Christians.  Bathybius  had  expelled  mira- 
cle. Thus  in  1868  and  1873  Bathybius  was  the 
watchword  of  the  acutest  anti-supernaturalistic  dis- 
cussions, and  was  adopted  as  a  victorious  weapon  by 
Strauss,  when,  with  his  dying-hand,  he  was  using  his 
last  opportunity  to  equip  his  philosophy  with  armor. 
Men  have  trembled  before  Strauss's  negation  of  the 
supernatural.  Bathybius  was  his  chief  support  of 
that  denial.  Huxley  called  his  discovery  Bathylius 
Hackelii.  Ernst  Hackel,  well  knowing  what  stupen- 
dous issues  were  at  stake,  elaborately  applauded  the 
discovery. 

3.  Great  microscopists  and  physiologists,  like  Pro- 
fessor Lionel  Beale  and  Dr.  Carpenter,  rejected  Hux- 
ley's testimony  on  this  matter  of  fact.  Dr.  Wallich, 
in  1869,  in  the  Monthly  Microscopical  Journal,  pre- 
sented evidence  that  the  deep-sea  ooze  has  nothing 
in  it  to  connrm  Huxley's  views.  The  ship  Challen- 
ger, engaged  now  in  deep-sea  soundings,  has  accu- 


4  BIOLOGY. 

mulated  evidence  of  the  same  sort ;  and  at  present 
Bathybius  is  a  scientific  myth  and  a  by-word  of  deris- 
ion. "  Bathybius,"  says  Professor  Lionel  Beale  in  his 
work  on  "  Protoplasm  "  (London,  1874,  pp.  110,  368, 
371),  which  the  North  British  Review  well  calls 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  books  of  the  age, 
"  instead  of  being  a  widely-extending  sheet  of  living 
protoplasm,  which  grows  at  the  expense  of  inorganic 
elements,  is  rather  to  be  regarded  as  a  complex  mass 
of  slime,  with  many  foreign  bodies  and  the  debris  of 
living  organisms  which  have  passed  away.  Numer- 
ous minute  living  forms  are,  however,  still  found 
upon  it."  At  the  meeting  of  the  German  Natural- 
ists' Association  at  Hamburg,  in  September,  1876, 
Bathybius  was  publicly  interred.  It  was  my  fortune 
to  converse  for  a  while,  lately,  with  Professor  Dana 
of  Yale  College,  when  I  put  to  him  the  question, 
"  Does  Bathybius  bear  the  microscope  ?  "  He  re- 
plied, "  You  know,  that,  in  a  late  number  of  4  The 
American  Journal  of  Science  and  Arts,'  Huxley  has 
withdrawn  his  adhesion  to  his  theory  about  Bathy- 
bius." Thus  the  ship  Challenger  has  challenged  the 
assertion  with  which  Strauss  challenged  the  world ; 
and  Huxley  himself  has  left  Bathybius  to  take  its 
place  with  other  ghosts  of  not  blessed  memory  in  the 
history  of  hasty  speculation. 

4.  Nevertheless,  in  his  New- York  definition  of  the 
doctrine  of  evolution,  Professor ,  Huxley  speaks  of  a 
"  gelatinous  mass,  which,  so  far  as  our  present  knowl- 
edge goes,  is  the  common  foundation  of  all  life." 
As,  by  his  own  confession,  no  such  gelatinous  mass 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION.     5 

has  ever  been  observed,  his  popular  assertion  thi.t  our 
"  knowledge  "  goes  "  so  far  "  as  to  establish  that  this 
gelatinous  mass  not  only  exists,  but  is  the  foundation 
of  all  life,  is  contradictory  of  his  published  retraction 
of  his  theory  before  scholars.  The  observed  Bathy- 
bius  having  turned  out  to  be  a  myth,  its  place  is  now 
occupied  by  an  inferential  Bathybius.  The  chasm  be- 
tween the  inorganic  and  the  organic  was  not  bridged 
by  the  results  of  actual  observation ;  but  it  must  yet 
be  bridged,  even  if  only  with  a  guess  and  a  recanted 
theory.  This  substitution  of  the  inferential  for  the 
observed  is  unscientific.  A  primary  fault  of  Professor 
Huxley's  latest  definition  of  the  basis  of  evolution  is 
self-contradiction. 

Huxley  persists  in  his  forced  recantation  in  spite  of 
all  the  alleged  discoveries  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  and 
the  Adriatic.  But  the  gelatinous  mass,  which,  ac- 
cording to  Huxley's  New-York  Lectures,  is  the  com- 
mon foundation  of  all  life,  he  defined.  His  words 
permit  no  doubt  that  he  meant  Bathybius  and  its 
associated  forms  of  life,  as  Hackel  does  in  similar 
language,  and  not  protoplasm  in  the  minute  forms 
in  which  it  exists  in  the  living  tissues  of  to-day. 
Huxley  affirmed  in  New  York,  that,  "  if  we  traced 
back  the  animal  and  vegetable  world,  we  should  find, 
preceding  what  now  exists,  animals  and  plants  not 
identical  with  them,  but  like  them,  only  increasing 
their  differences  as  we  go  back  in  time,  and  at  the 
same  time  becoming  simpler  and  simpler,  until  finally 
we  should  arrive  at  the  gelatinous  mass,  which,  so  far 
as  our  present  knowledge  goes,  is  the  common  foun- 


6  BIOLOGY. 

datioii  of  all  life.  The  tendency  of  science  is  to  jus- 
tify the  speculation  that  that  also  could  be  traced 
farther  back,  perhaps  to  the  general  nebulous  con- 
dition of  matter"  {Tribune  Pamphlet  Report,  p.  16). 

Very  plainly,  by  this  gelatinous  mass,  at  which  we 
should  "  arrive  "  by  a  process  of  investigation  carried 
backward  to  the  first  living  organisms  and  to  the 
nebulous  condition  of  matter,  Huxley  does  not  mean 
protoplasm  in  minute  forms  in  the  veins  of  the  nettle, 
and  in  the  other  living  tissues  of  to-day,  and  in  them 
constituting  what  his  famous  lecture  of  a  few  years 
ago  called  "the  physical  basis  of  life."  But  he  af- 
firmed that  our  "  knowledge,"  and  not  merely  our 
theory,  goes  "  so  far  "  as  to  show  that  Ms  gelatinous 
mass  is  "  the  foundation  of  all  life." 

In  view  of  his  recantation  as  to  this  sheet  of  living 
matter  beneath  the  seas,  this  assertion  is  self -contra- 
dictory. Since  no  such  gelatinous  mass  has  ever 
been  seen,  the  substitution  of  an  inferential  for  an 
observed  sheet  of  living  slime  enveloping  the  world 
is  unscientific.  With  the  argument  of  Huxley,  that 
of  Strauss  takes  its  place  among  exploded  and  ludi- 
crous errors. 

5.  It  follows,  also,  from  the  facts  now  stated,  that 
Professor  Huxley^  s  New-York  Lectures  are  defective  in 
omitting  the  most  essential  part  of  their  subject ;  that  is, 
in  failing  to  explain  how  evolution  bridges  the  chasm 
between  the  inorganic  and  the  organic,  or  the  lifeless  and 
the  living  forms  of  matter. 

6.  There  have  been  and  are  at  least  three  schools 
of  evolutionists,  —  those  who  deny  the  Divine  exist- 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION.  7 

euce,  those  who  ignore  it,  and  those  who  affirm  it ; 
or  the  atheistic,  the  agnostic,  and  the  theistic.  Carl 
Vogt,  Buchner,  and  Moleschott  belong  to  the  athe- 
istic school  of  evolutionists ;  Huxley  and  Tyndall  and 
Spencer,  to  the  agnostic  ;  Dana,  Gray,  Owen,  Dawson, 
Carpenter,  Sir  J.  Herschell,  Sir  W.  Thomson,  and,  in 
the  judgment  of  Professor  Gray,  Darwin  himself,  to 
the  theistic. 

7.  Of  the  theistic  form  of  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion, there  are  theoretically  three  varieties :  (1)  That 
which  limits  the  supernatural  action  in  the  origina- 
tion of  species  to  the  creation  of  a  few  primordial 
cells ;  (2)  That  which  makes  Divine  action  in  the 
origination  of  species  chiefly  indirect,  or  through  the 
agency  of  natural  causes,  and  yet  sometimes  direct, 
or  through  special  creation  ;  (3)  That  which  makes 
God  immanent  in  all  natural  law,  and  regards  every 
result  of  cosmic  forces  as  the  outcome  of  present 
Divine  action. 

8.  In  the  history  of  the  discussion  of  evolution,  the 
origin  of  species  among  plants  and  animals  has  been 
explained  by  at  least  seven  distinct  hypotheses  :  — 

(1.)  Self-elevation  by  appetency,  or  use  and  effort. 
That  is  the  -theory  of  Monboddo,  Lamarck,  and 
Cope. 

(2.)  Modification  by  the  surrounding  condition  of 
the  medium.  That  is  Geoffrey  St.  Hillaire,  Quatre- 
fages,  Draper,  and  Spencer. 

(3.)  Natural  selection  under  the  struggle  for 
existence,  with  spontaneous  variability,  causing  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  That  is  Darwin  and  Ha'ckel. 


8  BIOLOGY. 

(4.)  Derivation  by  pre-ordained  succession  of  or- 
ganic forms  under  an  innate  tendency  or  internal 
force.  That  is  Owen  and  Mivart. 

(5.)  Evolution  by  unconscious  intelligence.  That 
is  Morell,  Laycock,  and  Murphy. 

(6.)  Immanent  action  and  direction  of  Divine 
power,  working  by  the  purposive  collocation  and 
adjustment  of  natural  forces,  acting  without  breaks; 
or  the  theory  of  creative  evolution.  That  is  Asa  Gray, 
Baden  Powell,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll. 

(7.)  The  same  immanent  Divine  power  collocating 
and  adjusting  natural  forces,  but  with  breaks  of 
special  intervention,  and  this  notably  in  the  case  of 
man.  That  is  Dana,  and  Darwin's  great  co-discov- 
erer of  evolution,  Alfred  Wallace.  (See  arts,  on 
"  Evolution,"  by  Professor  Youmans  and  President 
Seelye,  in  JOHNSON'S  Cydopcedia  and  JOHNSON'S 
Natural  History.) 

What  Huxley  calls  the  Miltonic  theory  of  crea- 
tion, he  did  well  not  to  call  the  biblical;  for  it 
is  generally  admitted  by  specialists  in  exegetical 
science,  that  the  writings  of  Moses  neither  fix  the 
date,  nor  definitely  describe  the  mode,  of  creation. 
Professor  Dana,  in  the  closing  chapter  of  his  cele- 
brated "  Geology,"  exhibits  the  first  chapterof  Genesis 
as  thoroughly  harmonious  with  geology,  and  as  both 
true  and  divine.  Many  theologians  combine  their 
distinctive  positions  with  some  theistic  view  of  evo- 
lution, especially  with  that  held  by  Professor  Dana. 
Owenism  seems  at  least  as  sure  of  a  future  as  un- 
modified Darwinism.  Dana  and  Hackel  represent 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL   ON  EVOLUTION.  9 

respectively,  I  should  say,  the  use  and  the  abuse  of 
the  theory  of  evolution. 

9.  It  is   thus  evident,  from  the  history  of  recent 
speculation  alone,  that  there  are,  or  well  may  be,  at 
least   thirty  different  views  as   to   the  past  history 
of  nature ;  but  Professor  Huxley  affirms,  that,  so  far 
as  he  knows,  "  there  have  been,  and  well  can  be,  only 
three."      That  nature  has  existed  from  eternity,  and 
that  it  arose,  according  to  the  Miltonic  hypothesis,  in 
six  natural  days,  and  that  it  originated  by  evolution, 
of  which  latter  he  gives  a  definition, — these  are  his 
three  theories ;  and  they  are  a  curiously  incomplete 
statement  of  facts  in  the  case.     It  does  not  follow, 
that,  if  the  first  two  be  overthrown,  only  the  theory 
represented  by  his  definition  is  left  to  be  chosen ; 
but  this  is  the  implicit  and  explicit  assumption  of 
the  New- York  Lectures. 

10.  It  is  the  theistic,  and  not  the  agnostic  or  the 
atheistic,  school  of  evolution  which  is  increasing  in 
influence  among  the  higher  authorities  of  science. 

Some  agnostics  are  proud  of  exhibiting  under 
almost  atheistic  phraseology  a  really  theistic  philo- 
sophical tendency.  Spencer's  negations  in  natural 
theology  amount  to  the  assertion  that  our  knowledge 
of  the  Divine  existence  is  like  our  knowledge  of  the 
back-side  of  the  moon,  —  we  know  that  it  is,  not 
what  it  is.  But  I  assuredly  know  that  there  is 
not  a  ripple  on  any  sedgy  shore,  or  in  the  open  sea 
of  the  whole  gleaming  watery  zone,  from  here  to 
Japan,  which  is  not  influenced  by  that  unknown  side 
as  much  as  by  the  known.  So,  in  the  far-flashing 


10  BIOLOGY. 

spiritual  zones  of  the  universe  of  worlds,  there  is  not 
a  ripple  which  does  not  owe  glad  allegiance  to  that 
law  of  moral  gravitation  which  proceeds  from  the 
whole  Divine  nature,  known  and  unknown.  God 
is  knowable,  but  unfathomable.  The  agnostics  call 
God  unknowable  ;  but  that  he  is  unfathomable  is  all 
that  they  prove,  and  often  all  that  they  mean. 

11.  As  Professor  Huxley  does  not  notice  the  dif- 
ferent schools  of  evolutionists,  his  New-York  defini- 
tion of  the  doctrine  is  defective  through  vagueness. 

12.  For  the  same  reason,  it  is  defective  by  a  sup- 
pressed statement  of  hypotheses  which  are  rivals  of 
his  own. 

13.  It  is  evident,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  that, 
the  question  of  •  chief  interest  to  religious  science  is, 
whether  the  new  philosophy  is  to  be  established  in 
its  atheistic,  its  agnostic,  or  its  theistic  form.     But 
Professor  Huxley  regards  the  order  of  the  appear- 
ance of  species  as  a  matter  to   be  studied  with  all 
zeal :  the  causes  of  their  appearance  he  thinks  are  a 
matter  of  subordinate  importance.     At  Buffalo  he 
said,   "  All  that  now  remains  to  be  asked  is,  How 
development  was  effected?   and   that  is  a  subordi- 
nate question."    He  thus   makes  the   merely  initial 
question,  What?  more  important  than  the  command- 
ing and  final  question,  Why?     The  clashing  looms 
in  Machinery  Hall  at  the  World's  Exhibition  are  of 
supreme  moment ;   the  Corliss  Engine,  which  drives 
them,  is  of  subordinate  and  inferior  interest.     Re- 
ligious   science,   therefore,   finds   Professor   Huxley 
curiously  wanting  in  the  sense  of  logical  proportion. 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  OK  EVOLUTION.         11 

14.  The  New-  York  Lectures  insist  on  resemblances, 
and  not  on  differences,  in  related  animal  forms. 

15.  They  exaggerate  resemblances  by  broadly  in- 
accurate pictorial  representation.     The  Eocene  horse 
of  Wyoming,  of  the  genus   Orohippus,  Dana  says  is 
not  larger  than  a  fox  (Manual  of  Geology,  ed.  of 
1875,  p.  505).     The  bones  of  its  leg  and  foot  were 
represented  in  the  New-  York  reported  illustrations 
as  quite  as  large  as  those  of  the  horse. 

16.  The  New-  York  Lectures  prove  the  existence, 
not  of  connected  links,  but  of  links  with  many  gaps 
between  them.     They  prove  the  existence  of  steps 
with  many  and  long  and  unexplained  breaks,  and 
should  prove  the  existence  of  an  inclined  plane. 

17.  They  fail  to  reply  to  the  great,  and  as  yet 
unanswered  objections  to  Darwinism,  —  the  absence 
of  discovered  links  between  man  and  the  highest 
apes,  the  sterility  of  hybrids,  the  mental  and  moral 
superiority  of  man,  and  the  existence,  in  many  animals, 
of  organs  of  no  use  to  the  possessors  under  the  laws 
of  either  natural  or  sexual  selection. 

18.  In  asserting  that  this  self-contradictory,  vague, 
and  historically  inexact  account  of  evolution  is  a  dem- 
onstration of  the  truth  of  his  definition,  and  places 
evolution,  thus   defined,   on  "  exactly   as  secure   a 
foundation."  as  the  Copernican  theory,  which  is  veri- 
fied by  all   experiment,  and   has   in  its  favor  the 
unanimity  of  experts,  Professor  Huxley's  conclusions 
include  more  than  his  premises. 

The  New-  York    Lectures   disagree   in  their   con- 
clusions with  those  of  higher  geological  authorities, 


oar 


12  BIOLOGY. 

equally  well  or  better  acquainted  with  the  Ameri- 
can facts,  and  notably  with  the  conclusions  of  Dana 
and  Verrill.  According  to  these  professors  of  the 
university  where  the  relics  are  preserved,  the  bones 
explain,  in  part,  the  variations  of  one  style,  but  do 
not  account  for  gaps  between  groups  of  animals,  and 
least  of  all  do  they  account  for  man  (DANA,  Manual 
of  Geology,  pp.  590-604). 

Professor  Gray  calls  himself,  in  his  latest  work,  a 
"  convinced  theist,  and  religiously  an  accepter  of  the 
creed  commonly  called  the  Nicene"  (Darwiniana, 
1876,  p.  vi.).  Is  there  yet  any  occasion  for  the  dis- 
quietude of  a  free  mind  holding  these  views  ?  If  the 
demonstrative  evidence  in  favor  of  the  materialistic 
form  of  the  theory  of  evolution  is  unsatisfactory  as 
presented  by  Huxley  in  New  York,  what  shall  be 
said  of  the  subtler  procedures  of  Tyndall's  Belfast 
Address  ? 

Sitting  on  the  Matterhorn  on  a  July  day  in  1868, 
Tyndall  meditates  on  the  period  when  the  granite 
was  a  part  of  the  molten  world  ;  thinks  then  of  .the 
nebula  from  which  the  molten  world  originated  ;  and 
asks  next  whether  the  primordial  formless  fog  con- 
tained potentially  the  sadness  with  which  he  regarded 
the  Matterhorn.  (Musings  on  the  Matterhorn,  27th 
July,  1868.  Note  at  end  of  TYNDALL'S  Address  on 
Scientific  Materialism,  19th  August,  1868.)  In  1874 
he  answers,  Yes,  and  concludes  that  we  must  recast 
our  definitions  of  matter  and  force,  since  life  and 
thought  are  the  flower  of  both. 

Accordingly,  Tyndall's  effort  is  to  change  the  defi- 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL   ON  EVOLUTION.         13 

nition  of  matter.  Of  the  many  forms  of  materialism, 
his  coincides  nearest  with  a  tendency  which  has  been 
gathering  strength  among  physicists  for  the  last  hun- 
dred years, — to  deny  that  there  are  two  substances  in 
the  universe,  matter  and  mind,  with  opposite  quali- 
ties, and  to  affirm  that  there  is  but  one  substance, 
matter,  itself  possessed  of  two  sets  of  properties,  or 
of  a  physical  side  and  a  spiritual  side,  making  up  a 
double-faced  unity.  (BAIN,  PROFESSOR  ALEXANDER, 
Mind  and  Body,  1873,  pp.  130, 140, 191, 196.)  This  is 
precisely  the  materialism  of  Professor  Bain  of  Aber- 
deen, and  of  Professor  Huxley ;  and  its  numerous  sup- 
porters in  England,  Scotland,  and  Germany,  are  fond 
of  proclaiming  that  among  metaphysicians,  as  well  as 
among  physiologists,  it  is  the  growing  opinion ;  and 
that  the  arguments  to  prove  the  existence  of  two 
substances  have  now  entirely  lost  their  validity,  and 
are  no  longer  compatible  with  ascertained  science  and 
clear  thinking. 

TyndalTs  speculations  as  to  matter  are  simply  an 
extension  of  the  hypothesis  of  evolution,  according 
to  the  scientific  doctrine  of  uniformity,  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown.  Back  to  a  primordial  germ 
Darwin  is  supposed  by  Tyndall  to  have  traced  all 
organization  :  back  to  the  properties  of  unorganized 
matter  in  a  primordial  nebula  Tyndall  now  traces 
that  germ.  Evolution  explains  every  thing  since  the 
germ.  Evolution  must  be  applied  to  explain  as  much 
as  possible  before  the  germ.  So  far  as  we  can  test 
her  processes  by  observation  and  experiment,  Nature 
is  known  to  proceed  by  the  method  of  evolution : 


14  BIOLOGY. 

where  we  cannot  test  her  processes,  analogy  requires 
that  we  should  suppose  that  she  proceeds  by  the  same 
method.  As  all  the  organizations  now  or  in  past  time 
on  the  earth  were  potentially  in  the  primordial  germ, 
so  that  germ  was  potentially  in  the  unorganized  par- 
ticles of  the  primordial  star-dust :  in  other  words  there 
was  latent  in  matter  from  the  first  the  power  to  evolve 
organization,  thought,  emotion,  and  will.  Where  mat- 
ter obtained  this  power,  or  whether  matter  is  self- 
existent,  physical  science  has  no  means  of  determining. 
In  the  evolution  of  the  universe  from  a  primordial 
haze  of  matter  possessing  both  physical  and  spiritual 
properties,  there  has  been  no  design  other  than  that 
implied  in  the  original  constitution  of  the  molecular 
particles.  Of  course,  it  is  utterly  futile  to  oppose 
these  views  as  self-contradictory  in  the  light  of  the 
established  definition  of  matter. 

Many  of  the  replies  made  to  Professor  Tyndall, 
however,  miss  Ithe  central  point  in  his  scheme  of 
thought  and  endeavor  to  show  that  it  is  madness  to 
imagine  that  matter,  as  now  and  for  centuries  de- 
fined by  science,  can  evolve  organization  and  life. 
But  no  one  has  proclaimed  the  insanity  of  such  a 
supposition  more  vigorously  than  Tyndall  has  him- 
self. "  These  evolution  notions,"  he  exclaims,  "  are 
absurd,  monstrous,  and  fit  only  for  the  intellectual 
gibbet,  in  relation  to  the  ideas  concerning  matter 
which  were  drilled  into  us  when  young"  (Address  on 
the  Scientific  Use  of  the  Imagination,  1870).  Most 
assuredly  Professor  Tyndall  does  not  propose  "to 
sweep  up  music  with  a  broom,"  or  "  to  produce 


HUXLEY  AND   TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION.         15 

a  poem  by  the  explosion  of  a  type  foundery." 
•Audacities  of  that  sort  are  to  be  left  to  the 
La  Mettries  and  Cabanis  and  Holbachs :  they  are 
not  attempted  even  by  the  Biichners  and  Carl 
Vogts  and  Moleschotts  and  DuBois  Reymonds, 
who,  with  some  whom  Tyndall  too  much  resembles, 
are  now  obsolete  or  obsolescent  in  Germany.  "  If  a 
man  is  a  materialist,"  said  Professor  Tholuck  to  me 
once,  as  we  walked  up  and  down  a  celebrated  long 
arbor  in  his  garden  at  Halle,  "  we  Germans  think  he 
is  not  educated."  In  the  history  of  speculation,  so 
many  forms  of  the  materialistic  theory  have  perished, 
that  a  chance  of  life  for  a  new  form  can  be  found  in 
nothing  less  fundamental  than  a  change  in  the  defini- 
tion of  matter.  Tyndall  perceives,  as  every  one  must 
who  has  any  eye  for  the  signs  of  the  times  in  modern 
research,  that  if  Waterloos  are  to  be  fought  between 
opposing  schools  of  science,  or  between  science  and 
theology  or  philosophy,  the  majestic  line  of  shock  and 
onset  must  be  this  one  definition.  "  Either  let  us 
open  our  doors  freely  to  the  conception  of  creative 
acts,"  he  says  in  the  sentence  which  best  indicates 
his  point  of  view  in  his  Belfast  Address,  "  or,  aban- 
doning them,  let  us  radically  change  our  notions  of 
matter." 

Now,  it  is  singular,  and  yet  not  singular,  that  one 
can  find  nowhere  in  Tyndall's  writings  the  changed 
definition  on  which  every  thing  turns.  The  follow- 
ing four  proposition,  all  stated  in  his  own  language, 
taken  from  different  parts  of  his  recent  discussions, 
are  the  best  approach  to  a  definition  that  I  have  been 


16  BIOLOGY. 

able  to  find  in  examining  all  he  has  ever  published 
on  materialism  :  — 

1.  "  Emotion,  intellect,  will,  and  all  their  phenomena,  were 
once  latent  in  a  fiery  cloud  "  (TYNDALL,  Fragments  of  Science, 
Eng.  ed.,  p.  163).     '*  I   discern  in  matter  the   promise    and 
potency  of  every  form  and  quality  of  life  "  (Belfast  Address, 
1874).     "  Who  will  set  limits  to  the  possible  play  of  molecules 
in  a  cooling  planet?    Matter  is  essentially  mystical  and  tran- 
scendental "  (TYNDALL,  Fragments  of  Science,  Eng.  ed.,  p.  163). 

2.  "  Supposing  that,  in  youth,  we  had  been  impregnated  with 
the  notion  of  the  poet  Goethe,  instead  of  the  notion  of  the  poet 
Young,  looking  at  matter  not  as  brute  matter,  but  as  the  living 
garment  of  God,  is  it  not  probable  that  our  repugnance  to  the 
idea  of  primeval  union  between  spirit  and  matter  might  be 
considerably  abated?  "  (Fragments  of  Science,  p.  165.) 

3.  "  Granting  the  nebula  and  its  potential  life,  the  question, 
Whence  come  they  ?  would  still  remain  to  baffle  and  bewilder 
us.     The  hypothesis  does  nothing  more  than  transport  the  con- 
ception of  life's  origin  to  an  indefinitely  distant  past  "  (Frag- 
ments  of  Science,  p.  166). 

4.  "Philosophical  defenders  of  the  doctrine  of  uniformity 
.  .  .  have  as  little  fellowship  with  the  atheist,  who  says  that 
there  is  no  God,  as  with  the  theist,  who  professes  to  know  the 
mind  of  God.    *  Two  things,'  said  ImmanuelKant,  '  fill  me  with 
awe  :  the  starry  heavens,  and  the  sense  of  moral  responsibility 
in  man.'  .  .  .    The  scientific  investigator  finds  himself  over- 
shadowed by  the  same  awe"  (Fragments  of  Science,  p.  167). 
* '  I  have  noticed  during  years  of  self-observation  that  it  is  not  in 
hours  of  clearness  and  vigor  that  the  doctrine  (of  materialistic 
atheism)  commends  itself  to  my  mind,  and  that,  in  the  presence 
of  stronger  and  healthier  thought,  it  ever  dissolves  and  dis- 
appears, as  offering  no  solution  of  the  mystery  in  which  we 
dwell,  and  of  which  we  form  a  part"  (Additions  to  the  Belfast 
Address,  in  TYNDALL'S  authorized  edition). 

Of  the  definition  of  matter  implied  in  these  ex- 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION.         17 

tracts,  it  must  be  affirmed,  —  not  that  it  is  new,  for  it 
is  simply  what  the  schools  call  hylozoism,  modified 
by  the  recent  forms  of  the  atomic  theory  and  of  the 
doctrine  of  evolution,  but  that  it  reverses  the  best 
established  position  of  science. 

1.  It  denies,  and  the  established  definition  affirms, 
that  inertia,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  is  a  prop- 
erty of  matter. 

2.  It  affirms,  and  the  established  definition  denies, 
that  matter  has  power  to  evolve  organization  and 
vitality. 

3.  It  affirms,  and  the  established  definition  denies, 
that  matter  has  power  to  evolve  thought,  emotion, 
conscience,  and  will. 

In  the  conflict  between  the  established  definition 
of  matter  and  Tyndall's  definition,  I,  for  one,  prefer 
the  established,  for  the  following  reasons : 

1.  If  inertia  is  a  property  of  matter,  the  power  to 
evolve  organization,  life,  and  thought,  cannot  be ;  but 
that  inertia  is  a  property  of  matter  is  a  proposition 
susceptible  of  overwhelming  proof  from  the  necessary 
beliefs  of  the  mind,  from  common  consent,  from  the 
agreement  of  philosophers  in  all  ages,  and  from  all 
the  results  of  experiment  and  observation. 

Of  course,  the  logical  existence  of  the  alternatives 
implied  in  this  argument  is  denied  by  those  who  at- 
tribute both  inertia  and  spiritual  properties  to  matter 
as  a  mystic,  transcendental,  double-faced  unity  ;  but, 
while  they  use  the  word  "  inertia,"  their  definition  of  it 
is  not  the  established  one,  as  is  that  here  employed. 
By  force,  I  mean  that  which  is  expended  in  produ- 


18  BIOLOGY. 

cing  or  resisting  motion.  By  inertia,  I  mean  the  in- 
capacity to  originate  force  or  motion,  or  that  quality 
which  causes  matter,  if  set  in  motion  without  other 
resistance  than  itself  can  supply,  to  keep  on  moving 
forever ;  or,  if  left  at  rest  without  other  force  than 
its  own,  to  remain  at  rest  forever.  Materialism,  hy- 
lozoism,  and  Tyndall's  definition  of  matter,  cannot 
justify  themselves,  unless  it  be  proved  that  inertia  is 
not  a  property  of  matter.  Every  student  of  this 
theme  knows,  and  in  this  presence  it  is  unnecessary 
for  me  to  state,  what  the  proofs  are  that  matter  can- 
not move  itself.  They  are  far  more  superabundant 
and  crucial  than  even  those  which  support  the  belief 
in  the  existence  of  gravitation.  Newton  himself  did 
not  regard  attraction  as  an  essential  property  of  mat- 
ter ;  and  it  was  long  a  debate  whether  his  great  gen- 
eralization should  be  named  the  theory  of  attraction, 
or  the  theory  of  propulsion.  If  the  established  defi- 
nition of  matter,  and  the  consequent  proof  of  the  spir- 
itual origin  of  all  force,  or  of  the  Divine  immanence 
in  natural  law,  are  not  to  be  disestablished  until  that 
late  day  when  the  proof  that  inertia  is  not  a  property 
of  matter,  that  is,  that  matter  can  move  itself,  can  be 
put  into  the  form  of  a  syllogism,  then  the  yoke  of 
Socrates,  Aristotle,  and  Plato,  —  of  which  Tyndall 
complains,  that,  after  twenty  centuries,  it  is  }^et  un- 
broken, —  is  likely  to  continue  to  be  what  it  now  is, 
one  of  the  best  examples  in  history  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest. 

2.  The  established  definition  of  matter  rests  on 
facts  verifiable  by  experience ;  Tyndall's,  confessedly, 


HUXLEY  AND   TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION.        19 

is  demanded  and  supported  only  by  the  tendencies 
of  an  improved  theory  of  evolution. 

"  Those  who  hold  the  doctrine  of  evolution,"  says 
Tyndall  himself,  "  are  by  no  means  ignorant  of  the 
uncertainty  of  their  data,  and  they  yield  no  more  to 
it  than  a  provisional  assent.  They  regard  the  nebu- 
lar hypothesis  as  probable  ;  and,  in  the  utter  absence 
of  any  evidence  to  prove  the  act  illegal,  they  extend 
the  method  of  nature  from  the  present  into  the  past, 
and  accept  as  probable  the  unbroken  sequence  of 
development  from  the  nebula  to  the  present  time  " 
{Fragments  of  Science,  p.  166). 

In  his  Belfast  Address,  Tyndall  says,  "  The  strength 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  consists  not  in  an  expe- 
rimental demonstration,  but  in  its  general  harmony 
with  the  method  of  Nature  as  hitherto  known."  But 
Ms  definition  of  matter  rests  only  on  this  theory, 
which,  as  he  admits,  is  not  verified  by  experiment ; 
while  the  accepted  definition  of  matter  is  so  verified. 
It  is  notoriously  to  experiment,  and  to  ages  of  experi- 
ment, and  to  necessary  belief  itself,  that  the  accepted 
definition  appeals ;  it  is  to  the  exigencies  of  an  un- 
verified, and  experimentally  unverifiable  theory,  that 
Tyndall  appeals. 

3.  According  to  the  doctrines  of  analogy  and  uni- 
formity, on  which  Tyndall  relies,  matter  must  be 
supposed  to  be  inert  where  we  cannot  experiment  on 
it,  since  it  is  where  we  can. 

4.  Tyndall  admits  that  the  manner  of  the  connec- 
tion between  matter  and  mind  is  unthinkable,  and 
that,  "if  we  try  to  comprehend  that  connection,  we 


20  BIOLOGY. 

sail  in  a  vacuum."  His  own  definition,  therefore, 
involves  propositions  which  are  unthinkable.  They 
must  have  been  reached  by  sailing  through  a  vacuum, 
and  can  be  proved  only  by  a  similarly  adventurous 
voyage. 

Pertinent  exceedingly  to  the  criticism  of  his  defi- 
nition of  matter  are  Tyndall's  famous  admissions  that 
"  molecular  groupings  and  molecular  motions  explain 
nothing ;  "  that  "  the  passage  from  the  physics  of  the 
brain  to  the  corresponding  facts  of  consciousness  is 
unthinkable ; "  and  that,  if  love  were  known  to  be 
associated  with  a  right-handed  spiral  motion  of  the 
molecules  of  the  brain,  and  hate  with  a  left-handed, 
we  should  remain  as  ignorant  as  before  as  to  the 
cause  of  the  motion  "  (Fragments  of  Science,  pp. 
120,  121).  If  the  connection  between  matter  and 
thought  in  the  brain  is  so  obscure,  that  neither  Tyn- 
dall,  nor  Spencer,  nor  Bain,  calls  it  the  connection 
of  cause  and  effect,  but  only  that  of  antecedent  and 
consequent,  how  can  the  connection  between  matter 
and  thought  in  the  nebula  be  so  clear,  that  Tyndall 
can  discern  in  it,  at  that  distance,  "  the  promise  and 
potency  of  every  form  and  quality  of  life  "  ?  How 
is  it  that  the  relations  of  matter  and  mind  are  un- 
thinkable as  they  exist  in  the  brain,  and  thinkable 
as  they  exist  in  the  nebula?  How  is  it  that  the 
nervous  vibrations  and  the  corresponding  events  of 
consciousness  are,  as  Tyndall  believes  them  to  be, 
simply  consecutive,  or  correlative,  —  a  case  of  "  par- 
allelism without  contact,"  —  while  the  matter  of  the 
universe,  and  the  life  and  thought  existing  in  the 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION.          21 

universe,  are  so  far  from  being  a  case  of  parallelism 
without  contact,  that  the  "potency"  of  the  latter  is 
all  in  the  former  ? 

5.  The  established  definition  of  matter  will,  and 
Tyndall's  will  not,  bear  Tyndall's  own  test  of  clear 
mental  presentation. 

Bishop  Butler  shows  this  well  enough,  even  when 
Tyndall  himself,  in  the  Belfast  Address,  composes 
the  Bishop's  argument.  Undoubtedly  Tyndall  has 
not  laid  too  much  emphasis  on  the  famous  German 
saying,  "  The  true  is  the  clear."  But  his  definition, 
contemplated  with 'all  patience  and  candor,  is  clear 
in  neither  its  affirmations  nor  its  negations ;  while 
the  established  is  capable  of  a  coherent  presentation 
in  both  these  respects.  So  far,  indeed,  is  the  Belfast 
Address  from  knowing  its  own  opinion,  that  in  one 
place  it  says  the  very  existence  of  matter  as  a  real- 
ity outside  of  the  mind  is  "  not  a  fact,  but  an  infer- 
ence," thus  implying  that  Tyndall  is  not  sure  but 
that  Fichte's  idealism  may  be  the  truth. 

6.  The  established  definition  is  justified,  and  Tyn- 
dall's is  not,  by  the  irresistible   testimony   of  con- 
sciousness that  the  will  has  efficiency  as  a  cause. 

Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter,  a  far  better  physiologist 
than  Tyndall,  and  whose  work  on  "  Mental  Physiolo- 
gy," just  issued,  is,  always  excepting  Lotze's  "  Mikro- 
kosmus,"  the  best  discussion  produced  in  modern 
times  of  the  connection  between  body  and  mind, 
analyzes  elaborately  all  the  latest  facts,  including 
Professor  Ferrier's  proof  of  the  localization  of  func- 
tions in  the  brain;  but  he  saves  himself,  as  Lotze 


22  BIOLOGY. 

does,  from  fatalism,  materialism,  hylozoism,  and  from 
that  definition  of  matter  which  Tyndall  adopts.  He 
affirms  a  very  broad  and  sometimes  startling  doc- 
trine of  unconscious  cerebration,  but  finds  in  the 
properties  of  the  nervous  mechanism  no  explanation 
whatever  of  our  consciousness,  that,  by  acts  of  will, 
we  can  originate  physical  movements,  and  control  the 
direction  of  courses  of  thought.  The  central  part 
of  TyndaWs  errors  is  to  be  found  in  his  shy  treat- 
ment of  this  necessary  'belief.  There  results  from 
this  shyness  his  insufficiently  clear  idea  of  what  he 
means  by  causation.  Almost  while  Tyndall  was 
speaking  before  the  British  Association  at  Belfast  on 
atoms,  M.  Wurtz,  president  of  the  French  Associa- 
tion, was  discussing  before  that  body  the  same  theme, 
and  closing  an  opening  address  with  no  unscientific 
indistinctness  as  to  what  cause  signifies.  "It  is  in 
vain,"  he  said,  "  that  science  has  revealed  to  it  the 
structure  of  the  world  and  the  order  of  all  the  phe- 
nomena :  it  wishes  to  mount  higher ;  and  in  the  con- 
viction that  things  have  not  in  themselves  their  own 
raison  d'etre,  their  support  and  their  origin,  it  is  led' 
to  subject  them  to  a  first  cause,  —  unique  and  univer- 
sal God"  (Address  republished  in  "Nature"  Aug. 
27,  1874). 

So  much  does  Tyndall's  Address  lean  on  Professor 
Draper's  book  on  "  The  Intellectual  Development  of 
Europe,"  that  it  is  a  witticism  of  the  London  press, 
that  the  discourse  is  rather  vapory  when  stripped  of 
its  drapery;  but  Draper  himself,  in  an  elaborate 
chapter  of  his  "Human  Physiology"  (pp.  283-290), 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION.    23 

undertakes,  by  an  argument  on  the  absolute  inertness 
of  nerve  arcs  and  cells  in  themselves  considered,  to 
demonstrate  physiologically  the  existence,  independ- 
ence, immateriality,  and  immortality  of  the  soul. 

7.  The  established  definition  is  supported,  and 
Tyndall's  is  not,  by  the  intuitive  belief  of  the  mind 
as  to  personal  identity. 

All  the  particles  of  the  body  are  changed  within 
seven  years,  as  science  used  to  teach,  or  within  one 
year,  as  it  now  teaches ;  and,  trite  as  the  power  of 
this  objection  to  materialism  has  made  the  objection 
itself,  the  inquiry  is  now  more  pertinent  than  ever; 
How  is  it  thinkable,  if  matter  evolves  the  personality, 
that  this  remains  the  same,  while  the  physical  man 
does  not  retain  its  identity  during  any  two  circuits 
of  the  seasons  ? 

Mysterious,, indeed,  is  the  phenomenon  of  the  per- 
sistence of  physical  scars  in  living  flesh  that  is  con- 
stantly changing  its  composition.  But  grant  that 
the  physical  basis  of  memory  is  an  infinite  number  of 
infinitesimally  small  brain-scars,  constantly  repro- 
duced, although  the  particles  of  the  brain  are  all 
changed,  still  it  is  as  unthinkable  that  these  scars 
should  rebuild  themselves  as  that  the  original  cuts 
should  cut  themselves.  It  is  the  generally-accepted 
theory  of  metaphysical  science,  that  the  soul  builds 
the  body,  and  not  the  body  the  soul.  But  if  it  be 
assumed,  that  matter  does  evolve  spirit,  then,  in  the 
case  of  the  physical  basis  of  memory,  it  must  b€p 
supposed  to  be  hand,  chisel,  inscription,  and  marble 
all  at  once,  and  not  only  so,  but  the  reader  of  the 


24  BIOLOGY. 

inscription ;  and  all  this  while  every  particle  of  the 
marble  is  known  to  crumble  away,  and  to  be  replaced 
by  entirely  new  particles,  every  twelve  months. 
Flatter  contradiction  to  that  principle  of  the  induc- 
tive method  which  asserts  that  every  change  must 
have  an  adequate  cause  does  not  exist  anywhere  than 
inheres  in  all  attempts  hitherto  made  to  evolve  from 
matter  the  soul's  ineradicable  conviction  of  personal 
identity. 

According  to  Tyndall's  proposed  definition,  there 
is  in  man,  as  in  the  universe,  but  one  substance  :  in 
the  microcosmus,  as  in  the  macrocosmus,  all  is  double- 
faced  matter,  —  spiritual  on  the  one  side,  and  physical 
on  the  other.  There  is  nowhere  any  immaterial  agent 
separate  from  a  material  substance.  The  particles 
of  man's  body  are  endowed  with  physical  and  spir- 
itual properties,  and  are  so  peculiarly  grouped,  that 
their  interaction  produces  not  only  his  organization, 
but  his  inmost  spiritual  nature.  To  say,  however, 
that  although  the  body  in  its  living  state  loses  all  its 
particles,  and  although  these  are  replaced  by  new, 
the  old  form  is  yet  retained,  and  that  this  similar 
grouping  of  the  particles  explains  the  continuity  of 
the  consciousness  implied  in  the  sense  of  personal 
identity,  is  to  introduce  design  without  a  designer. 
Collocation  of  parts  in  an  organism  is  precisely  what 
materialism  has  never  yet  explained.  Undoubtedly 
oxygen  and  hydrogen  have  such  properties,  that,  if 
four  atoms  of  the  former  and  eight  of  the  latter  come 
into  proper  collocation  with  each  other,  they  will 
unite,  and  form  water ;  but  they  have  no  properties 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION.          25 

tending  to  bring  them  together  in  precisely  these 
proportions.  Collocation  has  ever  been  a  word  of 
evil  ornen  to  the  materialistic  theory. 

The  particles  that  go  out  of  the  system  do  not 
transmit  their  spiritual  any  more  than  their  physical 
qualities  to  the  new  particles  that  come  in ;  for  the 
spiritual  qualities,  as  the  changed  definition  of 
matter  states,  inhere  in  the  very  substance  of  each 
particle ;  and  inherent  properties  are  not  transferable. 
When,  therefore,  we  exhale  and  perspire  wasted 
particles,  there  is  plainly  no  room  left  by  this  defi- 
nition for  denying  that  we  perspire  latent  soul,  and 
exhale  latent  personality.  In  a  complete  renewal 
of  the  particles  of  the  organization,  therefore,  there 
ought  to  be  a  renewal  of  the  personality.  Such  is 
the  theory ;  but  right  athwart  the  only  course  it  can 
sail  in  juts  up'  the  gnarled  rock  of  man's  necessary 
belief  that  he  does  not  change  his  personality:  a 
reef,  this,  with  its  roots  in  the  core  of  the  world ;  a 
huge,  hungry  sea-crag,  strewn  already  with  the 
wrecks  of  .  multitudes  of  materialistic  fleets,  and 
where  the  new  materialistic  Armada  is  itself  destined 
to  beach  on  chaos. 

8.  The  established  definition  is  justified ;  and  Tyn- 
dall's  is  not  by  the  notorious  failure  of  science  to 
produce  a  single  instance  of  spontaneous  generation, 

9.  Admissions  of  the  opponents  of  the  established 
definition  exist  in  abundance  to  prove,  that,  if  taken 
"11   connection   with   the   hypothesis    of    a   creative 
personal  First  Cause,  it  explains  all  the  facts  which 
physical  science  presents  ;  but  these  same  opponents 


26  BIOLOGY. 

admit  that  their  definition,  even  when  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  is  accepted,  brings  the  physical  inquirer 
at  the  end  of  every  possible  path  of  investigation 
always  face  to  face  with  insoluble  mystery. 

10.  Finally,  the  mystic  and  transcendental  defini- 
tion, by  making  matter  a  double  somewhat,  pos- 
sessed on  its  physical  side  of  the  qualities  claimed 
for  it  by  established  science,  but  on  its  spiritual  side 
of  the  properties  necessary  to  evolve  organization 
and  life,  attributes  to  matter  self-contradictory  quali- 
ties, and  is  itself  inherently  self-contradictory. 

Matter  has  extension,  impenetrability,  figure, 
divisibility,  inertia,  color.  Mind  has  neither.  Not 
one  of  these  terms  has  any  conceivable  meaning  in 
application  to  thought  or  emotion.  What  is  the 
shape  of  love  ?  How  many  inches  long  is  fear  ? 
What  is  the  color  of  memory  ?  Since  Aristotle  and 
St.  Augustine,  the  antithesis  between  mind  and 
matter  has  been  held  to  be  so  broad,  that  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton's  common  measure  for  it  was  the 
phrase,  "  the  whole  diameter  of  being."  But  it  is 
proposed  now  —  and  this  is  the  chief  thing  I  have  to 
say  —  to  adopt  a  definition  of  matter  which  shall  make 
extension  and  its  absence,  inertia  and  its  absence, 
impenetrability  and  its  absence,  divisibility  and  its 
absence,  form  and  its  absence,  color  and  its  absence, 
co-inhere  in  the  same  substratum.  To  this  monstrous 
self-contradiction  the  mystic  hylozoism  of  Bain, 
Huxley,  and  Tyndall,  inevitably  leads  when  it 
defines  matter  as  a  double-faced  unity,  physical  on 
the  one  side,  and  spiritual  on  the  other.  The  reply 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL   ON  EVOLUTION.          27 

to  this  transcendentalism  of  the  evolution  school  is 
simply  the  first  law  of  the  syllogistic  process,  A  is 
not  Not-A. 

1.  Matter  and  mind  have  two   sets   of  qualities, 
each  the  reverse  of  the  other,  and  absolutely  inca- 
pable of  co-existence  in  the  same  substance. 

2.  We  know  that  the  two  sets  of  qualities  exist. 

3.  We  know,  therefore,  that  there  are  two   sub- 
stances in  which  the  qualities  inhere. 

4.  There  is,  therefore,  a  separate  immaterial  sub- 
stance. 

As  to  practical  inferences  from  this  discussion,  it 
is  worth  while  to  note  that, 

1.  The  new  philosophy  as  to  matter  is  consistent 
with  a  belief  in  the  Divine  existence,  but  not  with 
that  of   the  immortality  of   the    soul.      Alexander 
Bain  thinks  it  absurd  to  talk  of  the  freedom  of  the 
will.      Hackel  teaches  that  the  will  is  never  free 
{History  of  Creation,  vol.  i.  p.  237). 

2.  Teachers  of  the  inductive  sciences  must  not  be 
allowed  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  the  axioms  which 
lie  at  the  basis  of  the  inductive  method.     Physics 
scorning   metaphysics   is    the    stream    scorning    its 
source.     Science,  of  course,  is  not  science,  unless  it 
is  inductive.     But  behind  the  inductive  sciences  is 
an   inductive   method ;    and  behind   the    inductive 
method  are  the  laws  of  thought.     Inductive  science 
implies  inductive  method ;  inductive  method  implies 
syllogism  ;  syllogism  implies  axioms  ;  axioms  imply 
intuitive  beliefs.     Of  necessity  resting  on  metaphy- 
sics, science  has  nothing  surer  than  its  axioms  of 


28  BIOLOGY/ 

intuitive  truth ;  but  on  precisely  those  axioms  rest 
the  inferences  of  free-will,  responsibility,  and  the 
existence  of  a  personal  First  Cause.  Plaintively 
wrote  Aristotle,  after  mentioning  self-evidence, 
necessity,  and  universality  as  the  traits  of  intuitive 
truth,  that  they  who  reject  the  testimony  of  the 
intuitions  will  find  nothing  surer  on  which  to  build. 

3.  A  distinct  definition  of  the  word  natural  ought 
to  put,  and  ultimately  will  put,  all  science  on  its 
knees  before  a  personal  God. 

Charles  Darwin  and  Bishop  Butler  define  this 
fundamental  term  in  the  same  way  ;  and  that  not  the 
obscure,  heedless,  misleading,  outworn,  and  fathom- 
lessly vexatious  way  common  in  our  brilliant  periodi- 
cal literature.  It  is  a  fact  in  which  much  solace  for 
timid  Christians,  and  much  taming  anodyne  for  auda- 
cious small  philosophers,  He  capsulate,  that  the  fore- 
most naturalist  of  our  times,  and  the  greatest  modern 
Christian  apologist,  explicitly  agree  in  affirming, 

(1.)  That  "  the  only  distinct  meaning  of  the  word 
natural  "  is  stated,  fixed,  or  settled  ;  "  and, 

(2.)  That  "  what  is  natural  as  much  requires  and 
presupposes  an  intelligent  mind  to  render  it  so  — 
that  is,  to  effect  it  continually  or  at  stated  times  — 
as  what  is  supernatural  or  miraculous  does  to  effect 
it  for  once." 

These  f?.r-reaching  propositions  consist  wholly  of 
celebrated  words  from  Butler's  Analogy  (part  1,  chap. 
1),  the  book  which  Edmund  Burke  used  to  recom- 
mend to  the  acutest  of  his  friends  as  a  cure  for  scep- 
ticism. Barry,  the  artist,  for  whose  varied  and  invete- 


HUXLEY  AND  TYNDALL  ON  EVOLUTION.          29 

rate  spiritual  sickness  Burke  prescribed  only  the  study 
of  this  volume,  was  so  much  benefited  by  it,  that, 
when  he  made  a  painting  of  Elysium,  he  placed  But- 
ler in  the  foreground.  In  our  haughty  day  this  re- 
nowned passage  has  become  in  a  new  degree  famous 
by  being  adopted  through  numberless  editions  as  the 
postulate  motto  on  the  titlepage  of  Darwin's  Origin 
of  Species.  It  stands  there  as  a  head-light.  The 
agreement  of  Darwin  and  Butler  as  to  the  meaning 
of  the  word  natural  is  a  beacon  which  ought  to  be 
kept  steadily  in  view  by  any  who  grow  dizzy  as  they 
float,  perhaps  anchorless,  in  the  surges  of  modern 
speculation.  Butler's  and  Darwin's  definition  is 
Aristotle's  and  Kant's  and  Hamilton's,  and  New- 
ton's  and  Cuvrer's  and  Humboldt's,  and  Faraday's 
and  Dana's  and  Agassiz'.  Just  this  definition  has 
for  ages  been  the  established  one  in  religious  science. 
Of  late,  as  if  it  were  a  new  discovery,  it  has  ap- 
peared as  the  inspiration  of  the  loftiest  portions  of 
modern  literature.  The  vision  of  what  lies  behind 
natural  law  constitutes  the  hushed  "  open  secret," 
which  throws  the  Goethes  and  Richters,  and  Car- 
lyles  and  Brownings,  and  Tennysons  and  Emersons, 
and  ought  to  throw  the  whole  world,  into  a  trance. 

4.  A  miracle  is  unusual,  natural  law  is  habitual, 
Divine  action.  The  natural  is  a  prolonged  and  so 
unnoticed  supernatural. 

Professor  Asa  Gray  maintains  that  Charles  Darwin 
is  guiltless  of  all  atheistic  intent  ;  that  he  never  denied 
the  possibility  of  creative  intervention  in  the  origin 
of  species  ;  that  he  never  depended  exclusively  on 


30  BIOLOGY. 

natural  selection  for  the  explanation  of  variations 
in  animal  forms  ;  and  that  he  never  sneered  at  the 
argument  from  design,  to  which  John  Stuart  Mill 
advises  philosophers  to  adhere  in  their  proof  of  the 
Divine  Existence. 

If  religion  and  science  are  once  agreed  in  adopting 
Darwin's  and  Butler's  meaning  of  the  word  natural, 
all  that  either  of  them  has  to  do  is  to  become,  in 
Coleridge's  phrase,  intoxicated  with  God. 

5.  It  follows,  however,  as  a  minor  result  of  this  defi- 
nition, that  it  cannot  be  dangerous  to  religion  to  in- 
quire whether  the  origin  of  species  is  attributable 
wholly  to  natural  causes ;  that  is,  to  habitual  Divine 
action.  Is  it  a  terrifying  thing  to  ask  whether  life 
itself  and  all  its  modifications  originated  in  unusual 
Divine  action,  or  in  habitual  Divine  action,  or  partly 
in  one,  and  partly  in  the  other?  It  is  difficult, 
and  to  me  impossible,  to  see  what  ground  for  dis- 
quietude religious  science  has  in  the  prospect  that 
either  of  these  propositions  may  obtain  proof.  What 
harm,  we  may  say  with  Charles  Kingsley,  can  come 
to  religion,  even  if  it  be  demonstrated,  not  only  that 
God  is  so  wise  that  he  can  make  all  things,  but  that 
he  is  so  much  wiser  than  even  that,  that  he  can 
make  all  things  make  themselves  ? 

The  distinction  between-  mind  and  matter  stands 
like  a  reef  in  the  tumbling  seas  of  philosophy ;  and 
its  roots  take  hold  on  the  core  of  the  world.  In  mat- 
ter there  are  definite  qualities,  such  as  weight,  color, 
extension.  In  mind  there  are  none  of  these:  it  is 
absurd  to  speak  of  the  length  of  an  idea,  the  color  of 


HUXLEY  AND   TYNDALL   ON  EVOLUTION.          31 

a  choice,  the  weight  of  an  emotion.  When  Tyndall 
and  Bain,  and  other  revivers  of  the  Lucre tian  materi- 
alism, attempt  to  make  the  qualities  of  matter  and 
mind,  which  differ  as  diametrical  opposites,  and  by 
the  whole  diameter  of  existence,  —  extension  and 
the  absence  of  extension,  color  and  the  absence  of 
color,  weight  and  the  absence  of  weight,  inertia  and 
the  absence  of  inertia,  —  co-inhere  in  one  substratum, 
and  talk  of  a  double-faced  somewhat,  "  physical  on 
the  one  side,  and  spiritual  on  the  other,"  they  are 
self-contradictory.  It  is  upon  the  hungry  tusks  of 
self-contradiction  that  whole  Armadas  of  materialistic 
fleets  have  been 'wrecked  age  after  age;  and  here 
Tyndall's  barge  of  the  gods,  which,  like  Cleopatra's, 

"  Burned  on  the  water  :  the  poop  was  beaten  gold, 
Purple  the  sails,  and  so  perfumed,  that 
The  winds  were  love-sick  with  them," 

only  yesterday  sank  among  the  mists.  But  until  this 
reef  is  exploded,  until  the  distinction  between  matter 
and  mind  is  given  up,  there  will  very  evidently  be 
adequate  proof  of  Design  in  creation. 

Daniel  Webster,  when  once  asked  if  his  political 
opinions  on  an  important  topic  had  changed,  wrote 
to  his  questioner  to  look  toward  Bunker  Hill  in  thf» 
morning,  and  notice  whether,  in  the  night,  the  monu- 
ment had  walked  into  the  sea.  If  any  do  not  care 
to  puzzle  themselves  with  either  the  shrill  and 
shallow,  or  with  the  more  quiet  and  profound  voices 
of  modern  speculation,  and  yet  wish  freedom  from 
mental  unrest,  let  them  not  take  alarm  as  to  the 


32  BIOLOGY. 

argument  from  design  until  the  Aristotelian  and 
age-long  monumental  distinction  between  matter  and 
mind  has  moved  from  its  base ;  for,  until  that  shaft 
walks  into  the  sea,  Theism  is  logically  safe.  "  If," 
says  Kingsley,  "  there  has  been  an  evolution,  there 
must  have  been  an  evolver."  "  Faith  in  an  order, 
which  is  the  basis  of  science,"  says  Asa  Gray,  "  cannot 
reasonably  be  separated  from  faith  in  an  Ordainer, 
which  is  the  basis  of  religion."  The  law  of  develop- 
ment explains  much,  but  not  itself. 

6.  As  science  progresses,  it  draws  nearer,  in  all  its 
forms,  to  the  proof  of  the  Spiritual  Origin  of  Force ; 
that  is,  of  the  Divine  Immanence  in  natural  law;  that 
is,  of  the  Omnipresence  of  a  personal  First  Cause ; 
and  the  religious  value  of  this  proof  is  transcendently 
great.  Wherever  science  finds  heat,  light,  electricity, 
it  infers  the  motion  of  the  ultimate  particles  of  mat- 
ter as  the  cause ;  wherever  it  finds  motion  of  the 
ultimate  particles  of  matter,  it  infers  force  as  the 
cause  ;  and,  wherever  it  finds  force,  it  infers,  or  will 
yet  infer,  SPIRIT. 

"  God  is  law,  say  the  wise,  O  soul,  and  let  us  rejoice ; 
For,  if  he  thunder  by  law,  the  thunder  is  yet  his  voice. 
Speak  to  him  thou,  for  he  hears,  and  Spirit  with  Spirit'  may 

meet : 

Closer  is  he  ';han  breathing,  and  nearer  than   hands  and 
feet." 

TENNYSON. 


II. 

THE  CONCESSIONS  OF  EVOLUTIONISTS, 

THE     FORTY-  SEVENTH    LECTURE     IN     THE     BOSTON     MONDAY 
LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IN    THE    MEIONAON    OCT.    9. 


"  IF  every  thing  is  governed  "by  law,  arid  if  all  the  power  is  in 
the  physical  universe  that  ever  was  there,  where  is  God  ?  In  the 
intention."  —  PROFESSOR  BENJAMIN  PIERCE,  Unitarian  Review, 
June  1877,  p.  665. 

"  IN  regard  to  the  physical  universe,  it  might  be  better  to  substi- 
tute for  the  phrase  '  government  by  laws '  '  government  according  to 
laws,'  meaning  thereby  the  direct  exertion  of  the  Divine  "Will,  or 
operation  of  the  First  Cause  in  the  Forces  of  Nature,  according  to 
certain  constant  uniformities  which  are  simply  unchangeable,  be- 
cause, having  been  originally  the  expression  of  Infinite  Wisdom, 
any  change  would  be  for  the  worse."  —  DR.  "W.  B.  CARPENTER, 
Mental  Physiology,  chap.  xx. 


II. 


THE   CONCESSIONS  OF  EVOLUTIONISTS. 

AKISTOTLE  said  of  Socrates  that  he  invented  the 
arts  of  definition  and  induction.  But  Socrates,  we 
know,  was  not  a  teacher  of  logic  ;  he  was  the  inves- 
tigator of  ethical  truth  ;  and  it  was  in  the  endeavor 
to  satisfy  a  distinctively  theological  thirst  that  he 
smote  the  rocks  at  the  foot  of  the  Acropolis,  and 
caused  to  gush  forth  there  these  crystalline  head- 
springs of  the  scientific  method.  Unless  we  think 
boldly,  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  and  syllogisti- 
cally,  and  on  our  knees,  we  do  not  think  at  all. 
A  Greek  teacher  of  morals  first  taught  us  to  think  in 
this  manner,  and,  as  instruments  of  ethical  research, 
invented  definition  and  induction.  The  scientific 
method  thus  had  a  theological  origin.  Plato  first 
elaborated  it ;  but  he  drew  all  the  quenching  power 
of  the  stream  of  his  philosophy  from  those  pristine 
springs  of  definition  and  induction  which  Socrates 
opened.  Aristotle,  no  doubt,  was  the  earliest  to  give 
a  scientific  form  to  logic  as  a  system  ;  but  his  river  of 
philosophy  was  only  the  continuation  of  the  stream 
beginning  under  the  Acropolis,  wkere  the  terrific  force 
of  the  blow  of  Socrates  had  caused  these  healing  waters 

35 


36  BIOLOGY. 

to  burst  out.  It  was  in  theology  that  the  scientific 
method  first  found  full  application.  However  much 
we  may  criticise  the  Greek  and  Latin  schoolmen  and 
early  theologians,  it  remains  true  that  they  elaborated 
Aristotle's  logic,  and  drew  out  of  it  a  system  of 
induction  and  deduction,  which  was  only  turned  a 
little  aside  to  new  objects  by  Bacon.  I  am  not  one 
of  those  who  think  Macaulay's  essay  on  Bacon  fault- 
less. Gladstone  has  lately  shown  that  the  contrast 
between  the  system  of  Aristotle  and  that  of  Bacon 
was  not  as  great  as  the  brilliant  historian,  who  loved 
antithetical  contrasts  so  well,  would  make  it  out  to 
be.  The  scientific  method  existed  before  Bacon's 
time,  and  it  had  received  its  elaboration  chiefly  in  the 
schools  of  theology.  But  now,  since  Bacon's  time, 
we  hear  the  scientific  method  spoken  of  as  if  it  never 
had  a  mother.  We  are  told  that  religious  science 
must  borrow  from  physical  science  the  scientific 
method.  Religious  science  will  not  borrow  what  is 
her  own.  Aristotle  affirms  that  it  was  in  the  search 
after  moral  truth  that  Socrates  discovered  definition 
and  induction.  Theology  demands  in  this  age,  what 
she  has  demanded  in  every  age,  that  we  should  be 
loyal  to  the  scientific  method.  We  must  have  defini- 
tion ;  we  must  have  induction ;  clear  ideas  and  spirit- 
ual purposes  conjoined  are  the  only  deadly  intellectual 
weapons.  When  a  haughty  attitude  is  assumed 
by  physical  science  in  the  name  of  the  scientific 
method,  all  that  religious  science  has  to  do  is  to  show 
that  she  was  the  mother  of  that  method,  to  adhere  to 
it  herself,  and  to  hold  to  it,  a  little  mercilessly,  physi- 
cal science  also.  [Applause.] 


. 


THE  CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  37 

Among  the  concessions  of  evolutionists,  these  are 
notorious :  — 

1.  That  spontaneous   generation    must  have    oc- 
curred, or  the  doctrine  of  evolution  as  held  by  Hux- 
ley and  his  school  cannot  be  true. 

2.  That  spontaneous   generation   has   never  been 
known  to  occur. 

3.  That  it  is  against  all  the  ascertained  analogy 
of  nature  to  suppose  that  it  ever  has  occurred. 

4.  That,  if  spontaneous  generation  has  not  occurred, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  a  supernatural  act  origin- 
ated life  in  the  primordial  cell  or  cells. 

5.  That  the  doctrine  of  evolution  as  held  by  Hux- 
ley cannot  be  true,  unless  some  bridge  can  be  found 
to  span  the  chasm  between  the  living  and  the  not- 
living. 

6.  That  the  present  state  of  knowledge  furnishes 
us  with  no  such  bridge. 

Who  makes  all  these  far-reaching  concessions? 
Professor  Huxley.  Where?  In  a  most  suggestive 
article  on  "  Biology,"  published  in  "  The  Encyclopae- 
dia Britannica,"  the  ninth  edition  of  which,  as  you 
are  aware,  is  now  issuing  from  the  press. 

It  is  not  asserted  by  this  Lectureship  that  a  doc- 
trine of  natural  selection  cannot  be  proved  unless 
spontaneous  generation  can  be  shown  to  be  a  possi- 
bility. I  assert,  however,  that  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion "  as  held  by  Huxley  and  his  school "  cannot 
stand,  unless  spontaneous  generation  can  be  shown 
to  have  been  a  fact.  This  is  Huxley's  own  conces- 
sion. He  says,  "  If  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  is  true, 


38  BIOLOGY. 

living  matter  must  have  arisen  from  not-living  matter  ; 
for  by  the  hypothesis  the  condition  of  the  globe  was 
at  one  time  such,  that  living  matter  could  not  have 
existed  in  it,  life  being  entirely  incompatible  with  the 
gaseous  state  "  (HuxLEY,  PKOFESSOK,  T.  H.,  Encyc. 
Brit.,  ed.  of  1876,  art.  "Biology,"  p.  689). 

"  The  properties  of  living  matter  distinguish  it 
absolutely  from  all  other  kinds  of  things ;  and  the 
present  state  of  knowledge  furnishes  us  with  no  link  be- 
tween the  living  and  the  not-living  "  (p.  679). 

"At  the  present  moment  there  is  not  a  shadow 
of  trustworthy  direct  evidence  that  abiogenesis  [or 
spontaneous  generation]  does  take  place,  or  has  taken 
place,  within  the  period  during  which  the  existence 
of  the  globe  is  recorded  "  (p.  689). 

Will  you  put  these  strategic  propositions  into  con- 
tact with  each  other  ?  Huxley's  form  of  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  stands  or  falls  with  the  fate  of  the 
doctrine  concerning  spontaneous  generation.  Dar- 
win's form  of  it  does  not ;  Dana's  not ;  and  Gray's 
not. 

Huxley,  you  notice,  expressly  concedes  that  al] 
the  evidence  we  now  have  is  against  the  theory  that 
spontaneous  generation  is  possible,  and  that  the  pres- 
ent state  of  knowledge  furnishes  us  with  no  link  be- 
tween the  not-living  and  the  living. 

Hackel  concedes,  and  it  is  very  evident  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  that  if  the  primordial  cells  did 
not  originate  spontaneously,  or  by  usual  Divine  ac- 
tion, they  must  have  been  originated  supernaturally, 
or  by  unusual  Divine  action.  The  theory  of  natural 


THE   CONCESSIONS   ON  EVOLUTIONISTS.  39 

selection  as  held  by  Darwin  does  not  attempt  to 
bridge  the  chasm  between  the  living  and  the  not- 
living. 

To  show  how  incisive  the  assertion  is,  "  that  life 
is  incompatible  with  the  gaseous  state,"  Professor 
Huxley  says,  in  a  note  following  the  sentence  I  have 
read,  that  it  makes  ,no  difference,  if  we  adopt  Sir 
William  Thomson's  theory,  that  life  may  have  been 
inducted  into  this  planet  from  life  in  some  exterior 
physical  source.  The  nebular  hypothesis,  which  is  a 
part  of  the  great  evolution  theory,  asserts  that  all  the 
worlds  were  once  in  a  gaseous  state ;  and  so  in  that 
exterior  physical  source,  which  was  once  a  gas,  how 
could  life  have  arisen  ?  Even  Tyndall's  famous  mat- 
ter, so  richly  endowed  as  to  have  in  it  fct  the  potency 
and  promise  of  all  life,"  must  itself  once  have  been  in 
a  gaseous  state. 

When  Professor  Huxley  and  Professor  Tyndall  sit 
together  at  the  top  of  the  Alps,  and  Tyndall  begins 
his  definition  of  matter,  if  Professor  Huxley  will 
whisper  to  him  these  words,  "  that  life  is  entirely 
incompatible  with  the  gaseous  state,"  it  will  not  be 
logically  competent  to  Professor  Tyndall  to  go  on 
speculating,  as  he  once  did  on  the  Matterhorn, 
whether  or  not  his  pensiveness  and  his  thoughtful- 
ness,  as  well  as  the  gnarled  granite  peaks,  were  all 
potentially  existent  in  the  earliest  nebula.  Let  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  and  Professor  Tyndall  correct  each 
other,  and  perhaps  there  may  arise,  in  that  way,  con- 
tagious life  by  collision. 

"  But,"  continues  Professor  Huxley,  "  living  matter 


40  BIOLOGY. 

once  originated,  there  is  no  necessity  for  another 
origination,  since  the  hypothesis  postulates  the  un- 
limited, though  perhaps  not  indefinite,  modifiability 
of  such  matter.  Of  the  causes  which  have  led  to  the 
origination  of  living  matter,  it  may  be  said  that  we 
know  absolutely  nothing." 

Here  is  determined  agnosticism.  Of  course,  if 
physicists  will  not  look  outside  of  matter,  they  can 
have  no  knowledge  of  a  first  cause.  "  Give  me  mat- 
ter," said  Kant,  "  and  I  will  explain  the  formation  of 
a  world;  but  give  me  matter  only,  and  I  cannot 
explain  the  formation  of  a  caterpillar."  Professor 
Huxley  likes  to  quote  the  first  half  of  that  celebrated 
saying,  without  the  last. 

To  test  the  value  of  these  concessions  by  Huxley 
as  to  spontaneous  generation,  take  another  theme, 
and  one  on  which  our  opinions  are  not  divided  — 
the  philosopher's  stone.  We  do  not  now  find  our- 
selves able  to  make  a  philosopher's  stone.  We  have 
no  reason  to  believe  that  Nature  ever  made  a  stone 
that  will  transmute  the  baser  metals  into  gold.  There 
is  nothing  in  science  to  show  that  such  a  stone  can 
be  found  or  made.  But,  unless  such  a  stone  has  been 
made  at  some  time  in  the  past,  we  must  give  up  a 
pet  theory  in  philosophy.  Therefore  let  us  assert, 
thatj  in  the  complex  conditions  of  a  cooling  planet, 
perhaps  the  philosopher's  stone  may  have  come  into 
existence  by  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms.  [Laugh- 
ter.] You  smile,  gentlemen,  because  you  are  true  to 
the  scientific  method,  and  I  mean  you  shall  be.  But 
Strauss,  in  his  "  Old  Faith  and  New,"  asks,  "  Who  can 


THE   CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  41 

tell  what  may  have  occurred  in  a  cooling  planet  ?  " 
Virchow  says  that  things  were  mixed  in  those  early 
ages  and  that  it  must  be  that  somehow  life  origi- 
nated spontaneously ;  at  least  Strauss  would  be  very 
glad  to  have  us  prove  a  negative.  [Applause.] 

Now,  gentlemen,  there  is  a  famous  theory  ir 
geology  called  the  Uniformitarian  Hypothesis.  It 
assumes  that  the  geological  formation  of  the  globe 
was  due  to  precisely  the  same  physical  forces  that 
now  exist.  We  have  given  up  the  idea  of  great 
catastrophes  in  geology.  But  when  we  reason  con- 
cerning spontaneous  generation,  if  we  take  our  stand 
on  the  further  side  of  the  fact — if  it  ever  was  a  fact, 
—  we  are  in  the  field  of  simple  physical  forces.  Here 
are  just  the  influences  that  brought  into  existence  our 
mountains  and  seas,  and  determined  events  in  the 
inorganic  world.  According  to  all  established  sci- 
ence, these  forces  have  been  uniform.  The  Uniformi- 
tarian Hypothesis  turns  upon  the  idea  that  uniformity 
exists  in  the  forces  of  the  inorganic  world.  We  must, 
therefore,  insist,  that,  if  spontaneous  generation  does 
not  occur  now,  it  never  occurred.  We  must  do  this 
in  the  name  of  the  uniformity  of  nature. 

The  chasm  between  the  not-living  and  the  living 
forms  of  matter  is  the  fathomless  abyss  at  the  ragged 
edge  of  which  every  traveller  on  atheistic  or  agnostic 
roads  at  last  lifts  his  foot  over  thin  air. 

It  is  notorious  that  evolutionists  admit, 

7.  That  natural  selection  cannot  have  originated 
species,  if  the  sterility  of  hybrids  is  a  fact. 


12  BIOLOGY. 

8.  That,  in  the  present  state   of  knowledge,  the 
sterility  of  hybrids  must  be  accepted  as  a  fact. 

9.  That  it  is  fair  to  ask,  as  a  proof  of  evolution, 
that  there  be  formed  by  selective  breeding  two  spe- 
cies so  different  that  their  intercourse  will  produce 
sterile  hybrids. 

10.  That  no  such  species  have  as  yet  been  formed 
by  selective  breeding,  and  that,  until  two  such  have 
been  formed,  the  strongest  proof  of  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  is  wanting.     - 

Who  admits  all  this  ?  Professor  Huxley.  Where  ? 
In  his  famous  "  Lay  Sermons  and  Reviews,"  where  he 
cites  (p.  308,  American  edition)  Professor  Kolliker, 
than  whom  there  is  no  greater  authority  in  embryology. 
This  German  says,  "  Great  weight  must  be  attached 
to  the  objection  brought  forward  by  Huxley,  other- 
wise a  warm  supporter  of  Darwin's  hypothesis,  that 
we  know  of  no  varieties  which  are  sterile  with  one 
another,  as  is  the  rule  among  sharply  distinguished 
animal  forms.  If  Darwin  is  right,  it  must  be  demon- 
strated that  forms  may  be  produced  by  selection, 
which,  like  the  present  sharply  distinguished  animal 
forms,  are  infertile  when  coupled  with  one  another; 
and  this  has  not  been  done."  % 

What,  now,  does  .Professor  Huxley  himself  say, 
speaking  before  scholars,  and  in  reply  to  this  passage? 
"  The  weight  of  this  objection  is  obvious,"  is  his  an- 
swer; "but  our  ignorance  of  the  conditions  of  fertility 
and  sterility,"  —  which  have  been  witnessed  by  man 
six  thousand  years,  at  least,  —  "  the  want  of  careful 
experiments  extending  over  a  long  series  of  years, 


THE  CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  43 

and  the  strange  anomalies  presented  by  the  cross- 
fertilization  of  many  plants,  should  all,  as  Mr.  Darwin 
lias  urged,  be  taken  into  account  in  considering  it." 
This  is  all  he  says,  or-that  can  be  said,  in  reply  to 
this  objection. 

Hackel  asserts  that  sometimes  hybrids  are  not,  and 
five  hundred  other  authorities,  and  all  the  proverbs 
of  breeders,  affirm  that  true  hybrids  are,  sterile. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  evolutionists  concede, 

11.  That  natural  selection  cannot  take  leaps,  and 
that  therefore  a  multitude  of  links  must  have  existed 
between  man  and  the  higher  apes. 

12.  That  after  a  diligent  search,  for  nearly  forty 
years,  for  traces  of  these  missing  links,  none   have 
been  found. 

13.  That,  in  spite  of  all  imperfections  of  the  geo- 
logical record,  the  destruction  of  these  relics,  without 
traces,  is  amazing,  and  that  their  absence  leaves  the 
argument  for  evolution  weakest  where  it  should  be 
strongest. 

14.  That  the  oldest  human  fossils  exhibit  in  essen- 
tial characteristics  no  approach  to  the  ape  type. 

"  No  remains  of  fossil  man,"  says  Professor  Dana,  in 
a  most  significant  passage  of  his  "  Geology  "  (edition  of 
1875,  p.  603),  "  bear  evidence  to  less  perfect  erectness 
of  structure  than  in  civilized  man,  or  to  any  nearer 
approach  to  the  man-ape  in  essential  characteristics. 
The  existing  man-apes  belong  to  lines  that  reached 
up  to  them  as  their  ultimatum;  but,  of  that  line 
which  is  supposed  to  have  reached  upward  to  man, 
riot  the  first  link  below  the  lowest  level  of  exist- 


44  BIOLOGY. 

ing  man  has  yet  been  found.  This  is  the  more 
extraordinary,  in  view  of  the  fact,  that,  from  the 
lowest  limits  in  existing  man,  there  are  all  possible 
gradations  up  to  .the  highest ;  while  below  that  limit 
there  is  an  abrupt  fall  to  the  ape-level,  in  which  the 
cubic  capacity  of  the  brain  is  one-half  less.  If  the 
links  ever  existed,  their  annihilation  without  trace  is  so 
extremely  improbable,  that  it  may  be  pronounced  impos- 
sible. Until  some  are  found,  science  cannot  assert  that 
they  ever  existed"  [Applause.] 

In  regard  to  these  missing  links,  Darwin  himself 
says  that  their  absence  is  amazing.  Even  Huxley 
says  of  what  is  unquestionably  one  of  the  oldest 
fossil  skeletons  of  man,  that  it  has  "  a  fair,  average 
human  skull."  The  lengths  of  the  bones  of  the  arm 
and  thigh  of  the  man  of  Mentone,  one  of  the  oldest 
human  fossils  yet  discovered,  have  the  proportions 
ordinarily  found  in  man,  and  the  skull  is  of  excel- 
lent Caucasian  type.  (See  DANA'S  G-eology,  frontis- 
piece, and  pp.  575,  577,  and  603.)  The  poorest  fossil 
human  brain  is  twice  the  cubic  capacity  of  the  best 
ape  brain  (DANA'S  Geology,  p.  603). 

It  must  be  noticed  that  evolutionists  admit, 

15.  That,  if  any  animal  can  be  shown  to  possess 
organs  or  peculiarities  of  no  use  to  it  in  the  struggle 
for  existence,  the  theory  of  natural  selection  breaks 
down. 

16.  That  the  hairlessness  of  man  was  not  only  of 
no  use,  but  was  a  disadvantage,  to  him  in  the  struggle 
for  existence,  and  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  natural 
selection,  and  must  be  accounted  for  by  sexual  selec- 
tion. 


THE  CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  45 

17.  That  many  animals  possess  peculiarities,  which, 
so  far  as  we  can  see,  can  be  of  no  use  to  them  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  and  cannot  be  accounted  for 
by  any  form  of  selection,  natural  or  sexual. 

In  his  "  Descent  of  Man,"  published  in  1871,  Mr. 
Darwin  himself  makes  these  great  concessions. 
"  Natural  selection,"  said  Mr.  Darwin  in  his  "  Origin 
of  Species,"  published  in  1859,  "  can  act  only  by 
taking  advantage  of  slight  successive  variations ;  it 
can  never  take  a  leap,  but  must  advance  by  -short 
and  slow  stages.  If  it  could  be  demonstrated  that 
any  complex  organ  existed  which  could  not  possibly 
have  been  formed  by  numerous  successive  slight 
modifications,  my  theory  would  absolutely  break 
down." 

Compare  that  extract  with  this :  "  I  now  admit, 
after  reading  the  essay  of  Nageli  on  plants,  and  the 
remarks  by  various  authors  with  respect  to  animals, 
that,  in  the  earlier  editions  of  my  '  Origin  of  Species,' 
I  probably  attributed  too  much  to  the  action  of  natural 
selection  or  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  I  had  not  for- 
merly sufficiently  considered  the  existence  of  many  struc- 
tures which  appear  to  be,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  neither 
beneficial  nor  injurious ;  and  this  I  believe  to  be  one  of 
the  greatest  oversights  as  yet  detected  in  my  works  " 
(Descent  of  Man,  English  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  152). 

It  may  be  safely  asserted  that  evolutionists  con- 
cede, — 

18.  That  whether  the  cause  of  variation  is  a  force 
exterior  or  one  interior  to  the  modified  organism,  or 
a  combination  of  these  forces,  is  not  known. 


46  BIOLOGY. 

19.  That  it  is  probable  that  variation  is  due  much 
more  to  some  innate  force  in  the  modified  organism 
than  to  any  thing  outside  of  it. 

20.  That  the  influence  of   natural   selection    has 
been  exaggerated;  that  it  explains  much,  but  not 
every  thing ;  that  it  deserves  only  a  co-ordinate  rank 
with  sexual  selection  as  the  explanation  of  the  origin 
of  man ;  and  that  very  possibly  it  should  have  a  sub- 
ordinate -rank  in  contrast  with  yet  unknown  causes 
of  variation. 

"  No  doubt  man,  as  well  as  every  other  animal"  says 
the  Charles  Darwin  of  to-day,  "presents  structures 
which,  as  far  as  we  can  judge  with  our  little  knowledge, 
are  not  now  of  any  service  to  him,  nor  have  been  so 
during  any  former  period  of  his  existence,  either  in  rela- 
tion to  his  general  conditions  of  life,  or  of  one  sex  to  the 
other.  Such  structures  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  any 
form  of  selection,  or  by  the  inherited  effects  of  the  use 
and  disuse  of  parts  "  (Descent  of  Man,  vol.  ii.  p.  387). 

"  In  the  greater  number  of  cases  we  can  only  say 
that  the  cause  of  each  slight  variation  and  of  each 
monstrosity  lies  much  more  in  the  nature  or  constitution 
of*  the  organism  than  in  the  nature  of  the  surrounding 
conditions,  though  new  and  changed  conditions  cer- 
tainly play  an  important  part  in  exciting  organic 
changes  of  all  kinds"  (Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  388). 

These  astonishing  modifications  of  his  own  theory  by 
Darwin  induce  Professor  St.  George  Mivart  to  assert 
in  his  "  Lessons  from  Nature,"  a  work  which  has  but 
just  crossed  the  Atlantic,  that  "  the  hypothesis  of 
natural  selection  originally  put  forward  as  the  origin 


THE  CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  47 

of  species  has  been  really  abandoned  by  Mr.  Darwin 
himself,  and  is  untenable.  It  is  a  misleading  positive 
term,  denoting  negative  effects,  and,  as  made  use  of 
by  those  who  would  attribute  to  it  the  origin  of  man, 
is  an  irrational  conception,"  —  "a  puerile  hypothe- 
sis" (MIVAKT,  PROFESSOR  ST.  GEORGE,  Lessons  from 
Nature,  London,  1876,  pp.  280-331).  Any  who 
remember  Professor  Huxley's  article  on  Darwin's 
Critics,  in  "  The  Contemporary  Review,"  for  Novem- 
ber, 1871,  will  recall  the  strong  terms  in  which  he 
speaks  of  Mivart's  scientific  and  philosophical  com- 
petence. But  Mivart  holds  nearly  Professor  The- 
ophilus  Parsons's  and  Owen's  creed,  that  species  have 
originated  by  a  force  interior,  and  not  exterior,  to  the 
modified  organism.  To  that  position  Darwin  draws 
nearer  and  nearer.  Among  Darwinians  there  seems 
to  be  a  conspiracy  of  silence  as  to  this  fact.  Dar- 
winism is  becoming  Owenism.  Darwin  himself  is 
not  a  good  Darwinian.  [Applause.] 

God  be  thanked  that  this  age  takes  nothing  for 
granted !  No  :  it  does  take  one  thing  for  granted,  — 
its  own  superiority  to  all  other  ages ;  and  yet  one 
other  thing,  —  that  there  are  not  more  things  in 
heaven  and  earth  than  are  dreamed  of  in  its  philoso- 
phy. But,  my  friends,  the  scientific  method  requires, 
that,  when  we  run  up  our  list  of  causes,  —  chemical, 
electrical,  physical,  mental,  spiritual,  —  we  should  put 
at  the  top,  to  reach  on  into  the  infinite,  another  class, 
— the  unknown.  Even  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  are 
dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy. 


III. 

THE  CONCESSIONS  OF  EVOLUTIONISTS. 

THE    FORTY-EIGHTH    LECTURE    IN    THE     BOSTON    MONDAY 

LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IN   THE   MEIONAON 

OCT.    16. 


"  THE  convertibility  of  the  physical  forces,  the  correlation  of  these 
with  the  vital,  and  the  intimacy  of  that  nexus  between  mental  and 
bodily  activity,  which,  explain  it  as  we  may,  cannot  be  denied,  all 
lead  upward  towards  one  and  the  same  conclusion,  —  the  source  of 
all  Power  in  Mind;  and  that  philosophical  conclusion  is  the  apex 
of  a  pyramid,  which  has  its  foundation  in  the  primitive  instincts  of 
humanity."  — DR.  "W.  B.  CARPENTER,  Mental  Physiology,  chap.  xx. 

"CAUSATION  is  the  Will,  Creation  the  Act,  of  God." — W.  B. 
GBOVB,  Essay  on  the  Correlation  of  Physical  Forces. 


III. 

THE  CONCESSIONS  OF  EVOLUTIONISTS. 

-  •• 

THE  small  philosopher  is  a  great  character  in  New 
England.  His  fundamental  rule  of  logical  procedure 
is  to  guess  at  the  half,  and  multiply  by  two.  [Ap- 
plause.] God  be  thanked  for  the  diffusion  of  knowl- 
edge !  God  save  us  from  the  attendant  temporary 
evils  of  arrogant  sciolism  in  democratic  ages  !  These 
are  a  necessary  transitory  stage  in  the  progress  of 
popular  enlightenment  which  has  just  begun  to  dawn 
in  this  yet  dim  Western  world.  A  little  knowledge 
is  a  dangerous  thing;  and  it  is  our  boast,  that,  in 
America,  every  man  has  a  little  knowledge.  We 
must  drink  deep,  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  spring; 
but  every  breathlessly  hurried  free  citizen  now  is  en- 
deavoring, to  his  honor,  to  have  a  taste  at  least ;  and 
yet  we  know  how  mercilessly  commerce  and  greed, 
and  the  toil  for  daily  bread,  wrench  parched  lips  away 
from  the  deep  draught.  Full  popular  enlightenment 
is  popular  sanity ;  penumbral  popular  enlightenment 
is  often  popular  insanity;  and  yet  the  penumbral 
must  precede  the  full  radiance.  The  small  philoso- 
pher is  always  a  great  character  under  representative 
institutions.  He  seems  destined  to  reign  long  on  the 

51 


52  BIOLOGY. 

earth,  and  often  disastrously,  and  yet  not  forever. 
We  are  an  atrociously  independent,  and  as  yet  only 
a  half-educated  people.  De  Tocqueville  said  that 
individualism  is  the  natural,  and  must  often  be  a 
most  mischievous,  basis  of  democratic  philosophy. 
To  her  great  credit  and  to  her  great  temporary  men- 
tal distress,  Massachusetts,  in  which  popular  enlight- 
enment is  more  widely  diffused  than  elsewhere,  has 
probably  just  now  more  small  philosophers  than  any 
other  population  of  equal  size  on  the  globe.  Emer- 
son wrote  of  average  Massachusetts  as  she  was  thirty 
years  ago,  "  It  is  a  whole  population  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen  out  in  search  of  a  religion."  No  doubt  it 
is  to  our  credit  that  we  study  the  newspapers ;  but 
it  is  not  to  our  credit  that  we  do  not  better  main- 
tain the  best  ones,  and  that  we  do  not  sift  newspaper 
information  a  little  more  warily,  and  that  some  of 
us  think  a  man  can  be  competently  educated  on  the 
most  trustworthy  part  of  the  daily  press.  "We 
must  destroy  the  faith  of  the  people  in  the  penny, 
newspaper,"  I  once  heard  Carlyle  say  in  his  study 
at  Chelsea.  I  fathomlessly  respect  able  and  con- 
scientious newspapers;  I  revere  their  majestic  mis- 
sion in  history.  I  used  to  be  told  in  Europe  that 
Americans  are  governed  by  newspapers ;  and  I  was 
accustomed  to  answer,  "  No,  gentlemen,  not  by  news- 
papers, but  by  news  —  a  very  different  thing."  But, 
whether  the  shrewdest  readers  get  at  the  news  that 
is  the  most  strategic  in  science,  in  politics,  in  art, 
in  theology,  -by  a  hasty  scramble  through  the  mid- 
night scribble  of  our  cheaper  dailies,  is  rather  doubt- 


THE  CONCESSIONS  OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  53 

ful,  or,  rather,  not  doubtful  at  all.  The  most  ap- 
propriate prayer,  when  one  takes  up  the  penny 
newspaper,  is  an  invocation  of  the  spirit  of  unbelief. 
But  the  best-used  book  of  your  small  philosopher 
is  the  newspaper.  He  is  unchurched  in  art,  in 
science,  in  theology.  He  hears  great  names;  he 
obtains  glimpses  of  great  truths ;  he  puts  half- 
truths  in  the  place  of  systems  that  will  bear  the 
microscope ;  and  when  religious  science  occasionally 
gets  his  haughty  hearing,  it  cannot  on  the  Sabbath- 
day  go  into  secular  discussion  with  him,  and  you 
cannot  hold  his  attention  at  first,  except  by  secular 
discussion.  You  say  that  I  am  using  this  Lectureship 
very  maladroitly,  and  that  it  is  not  wise  to  discuss 
here  evolution  and  materialism.  I  do  not  speak  to 
or  for  ministers  or  scholars,  although  they  crowd  this 
hall ;  I  am  talking  to  small  philosophers. 

Lord  Bacon  said  that  "  truth  emerges  sooner  from 
error  than  from  confusion;  "  and,  in  the  spirit  of  that 
remark,  you  will  allow  me  to  be  analytical,  and  to 
number  my  propositions,  in  order  that  I  may  save 
time,  and  yet  be  distinct  in  a  crowded  discussion. 
Twenty  concessions  having  been  mentioned  in  a 
previous  lecture,  it  is  next  to  be  noticed  that  it  is 
notorious  that  evolutionists  admit, 

21.  That  life   is  incompatible   with  the   gaseous 
state,  or  the  state  of  fused  metals. 

22.  That  our  present  knowledge  justifies  the  con- 
clusion, that  probably  two  hundred  millions,  and  cer- 
tainly five  hundred  millions,  of  years  ago,  the  earth 
and  the  sun  were  in  a  fused  state. 


54  BIOLOGY. 

23.  That  neither  two  hundred  nor  five  hundred 
millions  of  years  are  enough  to  account  for  the  for- 
mation of  plants  and  animals  from  primordial  cells 
on  the  theory  of  the  Darwinian  transmutation. 

These,  gentlemen,  are  the  outlines  of  what  many 
men  of  science  regard  as  the  most  serious  of  all 
objections  to  the  hypothesis  of  evolution.  This  is  the 
only  difficulty  to  which  Professor  Huxley  in  his  New- 
York  lectures  condescended  to  reply,  it  is  the  most 
prominent  of  the  objections  which  Hackel  endeavors 
to  refute  in  his  recent  daring  work  on  "  The  History 
of  Creation."  I  now  hold  in  my  hand  this  book,  of 
which  Darwin  himself  says,  that  its  author  has  much 
more  information  than  he  has  on  many  points,  and 
that,  if  it  had  appeared  before  "  The  Descent  of 
Man,"  the  latter  work  would  probably  never  have 
been  written.  Professor  Hackel  teaches  at  present  in 
the  University  of  Jena,  in  Germany ;  and  he  is  one  ot 
the  most  extreme  of  evolutionists.  He  denies  the  free- 
dom of  the  will,  and  is  a  thorough-going  defender  of 
the  theory  of  the  possibility  of  spontaneous  generation 
(HACKEL,  History  of  Creation,  chap.  xiii.).  IJe 
affirms,  as  Huxley  does,  that  we  have  no  direct  evi- 
dence that  spontaneous  generation  has  ever  occurred, 
and  that  it  is  against  all  the  analogy  of  current  nature 
to  suppose  that  it  has  occurred.  But  he  knows  the 
exigencies  of  the  radical  form  of  the  theory  of  evo- 
lution ;  and  so  he  assumes,  with  Strauss,  that  possi- 
bly in  a  cooling  planet  a  living  cell  may  have  been 
originated  by  the  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms.  A 
cell  once  originated,  we  can  account  for  all  life.  But 


THE  CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  55 

he  is  painfully  aware  that  the  Darwinian  transmuta- 
tion requires  almost  immeasurable  time.  "  In  the 
same  way,"  he  says,  "  as  the  distances  between  the 
different  planetary  systems  are  not  calculated  by 
miles,  but  by  Sirius-distances,  each  of  which  comprises 
millions  of  miles,  so  the  organic  history  of  the  earth 
must  not  be  calculated  by  thousands  of  years,  but 
by  paleontological  or  geological  periods,  each  of 
which  comprises  many  thousands  of  years,  and  per- 
haps millions,  or  even  milliards  of  thousands  of 
years"  (^History  of  Creation,  chap.  xxiv.).  To  the 
same  effect  speak  Lyell  and  Dana,  and  even  Darwin 
(LYELL,  Geology,  vol.  i.  pp.  234,  235 ;  DANA,  G-eolo- 
gy,  ed.  of  1875,  p.  591 ;  DARWIN,  Origin  of  Species, 
p.  286). 

Now,  Professor  Huxley  very  strangely  said,  in  his 
lectures  in  New  York,  that,  if  the  astronomer  and  geol- 
ogist will  settle  between  themselves  the  question  as  to 
the  length  of  geological  time,  he  will  "agree  with 
any  conclusion." 

Not  so  speaks  the  candid  Darwin  ;  not  so  the 
audacious  Hackel ;  not  so  Lyell ;  not  so  Dana ;  not 
so  any  cautious  evolutionist ;  not  so  even  Huxley 
himself,  when  he  talks  before  scholars. 

"Thousands  of  millions  of  years,"  says  Dana 
(Geology,  pp.  59,  591),  "have  been  claimed  by  some 
geologists  for  time  since  life  began.  Sir  William 
Thomson  has  reduced  the  estimate,  on  physical 
grounds,  to  one  hundred  millions  of  years  as  a  maxi- 
mum." "  Any  "  conclusion  !  Let  us  take  the  best 
estimate  there  is,  that  of  one  hundred  million  years  ; 


56  BIOLOGY. 

and  Hackel  implicitly  affirms  that  this  is  not  enough 
for  the  process  of  the  Darwinian  transmutation. 

What  is  the  evidence,  gentlemen,  that  our  earth 
and  the  sun  were  in  a  molten  condition,  say,  five 
hundred  millions  of  years  ago  ?  We  tolerably  well 
know  of  what  materials  the  sun  is  composed.  We 
bring  down  by  the  spectroscope  its  talkative  rays, 
and  we  can  tell  what  metals  are  in  it.  We  know  the 
nature  of  these  metals  on  our  globe.  Heat  is  the 
same  thing  here  and  there;  gravitation,  the  same 
here  and  there  ;  light,  the  same  here  and  there.  The 
immense  argument  of  analogy  makes  us  sure  of  our 
footing  just  so  far  as  the  unity  of  nature  prevails. 
We  can  estimate  approximately  what  the  heat  must 
have  been  that  would  fuse  the  globe  and  the  sun. 
Sir  William  Thomson,  whose  scientific  eminence  no 
man  will  deny,  went  into  a  very  labored  calcula- 
tion, not  long  ago,  to  determine  how  many  years 
since  it  was  that  the  sun  was  a  molten  mass,  and 
how  many  years  since  it  was  that  the  globe  was  in 
a  fused  state ;  and  it  is  very  significant  that  he  came 
to  the  same  conclusion  in  both  cases.  The  two  con- 
clusions tallied.  The  sun,  he  said,  must  have  been 
in  a  molten  state  four  hundred  millions  of  years  ago 
at  the  most ;  and  it  probably  was  in  that  state  two 
hundred  millions  of  years  ago  at  the  least.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  earth,  which,  however,  was 
not  cool  enough  to  admit  life  until  about  one  hun- 
dred millions  of  years  ago,  as  Dana  says. 

When  we  look  at  the  reasons  why  Professor  Huxley 
sneers  at  this  argument,  we  are  the  more  amazed. 


THU  CONCESSIONS  OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  57 

"  The  biologist,"  he  says,  "  knows  nothing  whatever 
of  the  amount  of  time  which  may  be  required  for 
the  processes  of  evolution."  Does  not  he  know 
that  there  is  an  immense  extent  of  time  required  for 
it  ?  "  Nothing  whatever  "  known  about  the  period 
needed !  Why,  all  Darwinians  are  agreed,  all  evolu- 
tionists are  agreed,  that  we  must  take  Sirius-distances 
to  measure  the  time  required  by  evolution.  "  I  have  not 
the  slightest  means  of  guessing,"  said  Professor  Hux- 
ley at  New  York,  "  whether  it  took  a  million  of  years, 
or  ten  million,  or  an  hundred  million  of  years,  or  a 
thousand  millions  of  years,  to  give  rise  to  that  series 
of  changes."  On  Darwin's,  Lyell's,  Dana's,  and 
Hackel's  authority,  this  must  be  called  careless  talk. 
It  leaves  a  colossal  objection  unshattered.  (See  North 
British  Review,  1867,  vol.  xlvi.  p.  304.) 
It  is  admitted  by  evolutionists, 

24.  That  variability  in  species  is  a  lessening  quan- 
tity as  descendants  are  farther  and  farther  removed 
in  form  from  their  progenitors. 

25.  That,  as  every  lessening  must  be  a  finite  quan- 
tity, species  are  known  to  vary  only  within  compara- 
tively narrow  limits. 

26.  That  selective   breeding  has   thus  far  found 
variability  a  limited  quantity. 

27.  That  the  observed  differences  caused  by  varia- 
bility are  infinitely  small  as  compared  with  the  range 
of  variability  required  by  the  Darwinian  theory. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  savage,  looking  upon 
a  projectile  of  modern  artillery,  might  carelessly 
think  it  would  reach  the  stars.  He  does  not  make 


58  BIOLOGY. 

allowance  for  the  circumstance  that  the  speed  of  the 
ball  is  a  lessening  quantity.  We  find  it  to  be  a  fact, 
that,  the  farther  a  derived  animal  form  is  removed 
from  its  progenitor,  the  less  and  less  rapidly  varia- 
tions proceed.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  these  les- 
sening variations  may  be  fitly  represented  by  a 
sphere,  the  original  progenitor  being  the  centre,  from 
which  there  may  be  variations  in  all  directions,  and 
to  which  there  may  be  reversions  in  any  direction 
(North  British  Review,  vol.  xlvi.,  art.  on  "The  Ori- 
gin of  Species").  The  variations  are  like  the  throw- 
ing-up  of  a  cannon-ball  from  the  earth  ;  the  motion 
away  from  the  central  point  is  slower  and  slower  as 
the  distance  between  the  ball  and  the  central  point 
is  greater  and  greater.  We  assuredly  know  that  it  is  a 
truth  of  science  that  variability  is  a  lessening  quantity  ; 
and  we  therefore  do  know  mathematically  that  there  are 
limits  to  variability;  for  every  lessening  number  is  a 
finite  quantity.  Thus,  gentlemen,  there  are  broad 
distinctions  to  be  made  between  so-called  species  of 
a  variable  and  real  species  of  an  unvarying  kind.  If 
we  are  to  be  abreast  of  our  modern  science,  we  shall 
be  shy  of  saying  that  there  is  nothing  which  has  been 
called  a  species  which  may  be  transmuted  into  another 
species. 

I  would  confine  the  definition  of  species  to  the  limits 
of  ascertained  variability.  Here  is  the  sphere  of  vari- 
ation ;  and  we  know  that  the  more  any  descendant 
varies  from  its  progenitor,  the  more  likely  it  is 
to  revert.  It  may  go  back  in  a  single  generation. 
The  law  of  science  is,  that  variability,  being  a  lessen- 


THE   CONCESSIONS  O3F  EVOLUTIONISTS.  59 

ing,  is  a  finite  quantity.  If  you  will  draw  a  circle 
around  the  outermost  sphere  of  variability,  you  will 
have  what  Hiickel  calls  a  "  good  species  "  in  distinc- 
tion from  a  merely  nominal  species.  The  thing  we 
need  most  in  the  discussion  of  evolution  is  a  new  defi- 
nition of  species.  A.  real  species  will  be  conterminous 
with  the  outermost  limits  of  the  sphere  of  ascertained 
variability.  Grant  me  this  definition,  and  I  will  stand 
with  established  science  on  the  fact  that  we  have  no 
direct  evidence  that  any  real  species,  thus  defined,  has 
ever  been  transmuted  into  another  species.  [Applause.] 
It  is  notorious  that  evolutionists  concede, 

28.  That  the  cubic  capacity  of  the  brain  of  the 
highest  apes  is  thirty-four  inches,  and  of  the  lowest 
men  sixty-eight. 

29.  That  the  brain  of  man  is  by  much  larger  than 
he  needed  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 

30.  That  the   struggle   for   existence,  or  natural 
selection,  does  not  account  for  the  brain  of  man. 

31.  That  the  eye  of  the  trilobite,  one  of  the  oldest 
of  fossil  forms,  is  fully  developed  and  perfect. 

32.  That  the  trilobites  appear  suddenly  in  the  geo- 
logical record ;    that  there  are  no  premonitions  of 
their  approach ;    and  that  there  is  as  yet  no  direct 
evidence  that  they  had  any  ancestry. 

33.  That  the  use  of  an  organ  may  account  for  its 
modification,  but  not  for  its  formation,  since  it  cannot 
be  used  until  it  is  formed. 

34.  That  in  many  cases,  like  those  of  the  eye  of 
the   trilobite   and   the   brain-  of  man,  not  only  the 
theory  of  natural  selection,  but  that  of  sexual  selec- 
tion, breaks  down  completely. 


60  BIOLOGY. 

35.  That  in  some  cases  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
what  has  produced  useful  variations  in  animal  forms. 

36.  That,  in  certain  instances,  the  adaptation  of 
means   to  ends   cannot   be  accidental,  but  must  be 
referred,  not   to  natural,  but  to   supernatural  law; 
that  is,  not  to  the  habitual,  but  to  unusual  divine 
action. 

These,  gentlemen,  are  startling  concessions;  arid 
the  most  startling  of  them  all  is  the  last,  that  there 
are  instances  in  which  the  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends  "cannot  be  accidental."  But  those  are  Dar- 
win's words.  You  will  remember  that  in  his  deli- 
cious book  on  the  "  Fertilization  of  Orchids,"  at  the 
end  of  its  first  chapter  he  speaks  of  a  marvellous 
arrangement  by  which,  in  one  species  of  these  flowers, 
the  sipping-moths  are  "  purposely  delayed  in  obtain- 
ing nectar."  He  says,  "  If  this  is  accidental,  it  is  a 
fortunate  accident  for  the  plant.  If  this  be  not  acci- 
dental, and  I  cannot  believe  it  to  be  accidental,  what 
a  singular  case  of  adaptation !  "  Professor  Mivart 
{Lessons  from  Nature,  1876,  chaps,  ix.  and  x.)  quotes 
several  similar  admissions  from  Darwin's  later  writ- 
ings ;  and  he  regards  them  as  a  virtual,  though  not 
explicit,  retraction  of  the  theory  of  natural  selection. 
You  say  these  are  all  careless  expressions  on  the  part 
of  Darwin  ?  I  beg  pardon :  they  are  not  so  under- 
stood by  men  of  scientific  competence,  some  of  whom 
watch  him  more  closely  than  the  tiger  watches  its 
prey. 

I  am  riot  one  of  those  who  lie  in  wait  to  find  fal- 
lacies in  Darwin;  for  it  matters  little  to  me,  as  a 


THE  CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  61 

student  of  religious  science,  which  one  of  the  three; 
or  four  theistic  systems  of  evolution  is  proven  to  be 
the  best.  If  there  is  a  change,  I  know  that  every 
change  must  have  an  adequate  cause.  If  there  is 
order  in  the  universe,  I  know  there  must  have  been 
an  Ordainer;  for  every  change  must  have  had  an 
adequate  cause.  Based  upon  incontrovertible  axio- 
matic truth,  any  man  may  stand  in  the  yeasting  seas 
of  speculation,  and  feel  that  victorious  reef  tremorless 
beneath  him ;  ay,  and  fall  asleep  on  it,  while  the 
rock,  in  muffled  stern  thunders,  speaks  to  the  waste, 
howling  midnight  surge,  "  Aha  !  thus  far  ye  come,  but 
no  farther."  Men  can  never  give  up  belief  in  causa- 
tion. If  we  know  there  has  been  evolution  in  the 
universe,  we  know  that  there  has  been  an  Evolver ; 
and,  if  design,  a  Designer ;  for  every  change  must 
have  a  sufficient  cause.  It  will  not  be  to-morrow, 
nor  the  day  after,  that  men  will  give  up  self-evident, 
axiomatic  truths. 

Owen,  Parsons,  Mivart,  Dana,  and  Darwin  him- 
self, all  admit  that  useless  characteristics  and  organs 
cannot  be  explained  by  natural  selection  ;  and  Dar- 
win has  made  lately  many  admissions  of  his  over- 
sights on  this  point. 

Dana,  to  the  latest  date,  disagrees  completely  with 
Huxley  and  Hackel  as  to  the  origin  of  man,  and 
agrees  with  Owen,  Gray,  Mivart,  Parsons,  and  the 
whole  long,  stately,  and  growing  list  of  the  theistic 
school. 

It  is  not  denied  anywhere,  that  a  certain  extent  of 
variation  may  be  experimentally  produced  by  ex- 


62  BIOLOGY. 

ternal  conditions,  as  in  the  brine  shrimp  and  the 
axiolott.  What  is  denied  is,  that  external  condi- 
tions can  account  for  the  difference  between  the 
not-living  and  the  living. 

It  seems  to  be  the  policy  of  atheistic  and  agnos- 
tic evolutionists  to  obscure  the  distinction  between 
a  theory  and  the  theory  of  evolution.  The  tendency 
of  science  is  in  favor  of  the  former,  and  against  the 
latter;  that  is,  for  Dana  and  Hermann  Lotze,  and 
against  Herbert  Spencer  and  Hackel.  The  different 
schools  of  evolutionists  must  be  distinguished,  or 
there  can  be  no  clearness  of  discussion  on  this  theme. 

You  will  allow  me  to  read  one  passage  from  Pro- 
fessor Dana  on  the  great  contrast  between  the  brain 
of  man  and  that  of  apes.  Professor  Dana,  with  re- 
spect be  it  said,  is  not  a  Darwinian  ;  it  is  hardly  fair 
to  call  him,  without  qualification,  an  evolutionist. 
He  believes  that  evolution  explains  much ;  he  does 
not  believe  that  it  explains  every  thing.  He  does 
not  account  for  man  by  evolution.  He  agrees  with 
Wallace,  Darwin's  great  coadjutor,  with  regard  to  the 
origin  of  the  human  will  and  conscience.  Professor 
Dana,  in  justifying  his  significant  concessions,  says 
(Geology,  p.  603),  "In  the  case  of  man,  the  abrupt- 
ness of  transition  4  from  preceding  forms '  is  still  more 
extraordinary,  and  especially  because  it  occurs  so 
near  to  the  present  time.  In  the  highest  man-ape, 
the  nearest  allied  of  living  species  has  the  capacity 
of  the  cranium  but  thirty-four  cubic  inches ;  while 
the  skeleton  throughout  is  not  fitted  for  an  erect 
position,  and  the  fore-limbs  are  essential  to  locomo- 


THE  CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  63 

tion  :  but,  in  the  lowest  of  existing  men,  the  capacity 
of  the  cranium  is  sixty-eight  cubic  inches ;  every  bone 
is  made  and  adjusted  for  the  erect  position  ;  and  the 
fore-limbs,  instead  of  being  required  in  locomotion, 
are  wholly  taken  from  the  ground,  an4  have  other 
and  higher  uses." 

You  will  be  told  that  Professor  Huxley  has  said  that 
man  differs  less  from  the  apes  than  the  upper  apes  do 
from  the  lower  apes,  or  than  the  uppermost  men 
from  the  lowermost.  You  will  be  assured  that  there 
is  this  and  that  and  yet  another  point  of  resemblance 
between  the  skeletons  of  man  and  of  the  apes.  But 
bring  the  contrast  to  the  real  test.  What  of  the 
brain  ?  That  is  the  central  portion  of  the  system : 
increased  cephalization  is  the  law  of  the  progress  of 
animal  forms ;  and,  the  moment  you  compare  man 
and  the  ape  on  that  strategic  point,  the  difference  is 
half. 

Thirty-four  cubic  inches  of  cranial  capacity  on  the 
animal  side,  sixty-eight  on  the  human,  and  no  link 
between  the  two  !  Forty  years  given  to  the  search  ! 
All  the  agony  of  the  defence  of  the  Darwinian  hy- 
pothesis engaged  in  all  quarters. of  the  globe  in  filling 
up  this  tremendous  gap,  and  the  colossal  absence  yet 
remaining ! 

Professor  Agassiz  lies  in  Mount  Auburn  yonder  ; 
and  on  his  breast  there  is  a  bowlder  from  his  native 
Alps.  Whenever  I  look  on  it,  I  think  what  a  bowlder 
that  man  may  have  carried  on  his  breast  into  his  grave, 
because  he  was  not  able  to  develop  the  proposition 
which  he  laid  down  as  a  gantlet  before  Darwinism 


64  BIOLOGY. 

in  the  last  article  lie  ever  printed.  You  remember 
that  in  our  brilliant  Atlantic  Monthly,  face  to  face 
with  the  world,  Professor  Agassiz,  a  few  days  before 
he  passed  into  that  Unseen  Holy  where  all  puzzles 
are  solved,  affirmed  that  it  can  be  proved  that  the 
geological  record  is  not  so  imperfect  but  that  we 
know  what  existed  between  the  highest  apes  and 
the  lowest  men,  and  that,  however  broken  it  may 
be,  "  there  is  a  complete  sequence  in  many-  parts  of 
it,  from  which  the  character  of  the  succession  may 
be  determined"  (Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  xxxiii.  p. 
101).  He  promised  to  prove  that.  He  bent  that 
colossal  bow,  and  it  dropped  out  of  his  dying  hand. 
On  the  English-speaking  globe,  now  that  Lyell  has 
gone  hence,  there  is  no  man  but  Dana  that  can 
take  up  that  bow,  and  bend  it.  But  what  does 
Dana  say  ?  Go  to  Agassiz's  grave ;  take  with  you 
these  yet  moist  sheets  of  the  last  number  of  the 
American  Journal  of  Science  and  Arts ;  read  over 
Agassiz's  tomb  the  latest  utterance  of  the  high- 
est and  gravest  authority  in  American  geological 
science,  and  you  may  bring  solace  to  a  hovering, 
mighty  spirit  for  an  unfinished  task.  You  will  read 
Dana's  latest  words  (American  Journal  of  Science 
and  Arts,  October,  1876,  p.  251)  :  "  For  the  devel- 
opment of  man,  gifted  with  high  reason  and  will,  and 
thus  made  a  power  above  Nature,  there  was  required, 
as  Wallace  has  urged,  a  special  act  of  a  Being  above 
Nature,  whose  supreme  Will  is  not  only  the  source  of 
natural  law,  but  the  working-force  of  Nature  herself. 
This  I  still  hold"  You  say  that  Agassiz  was  unduly 


THE    CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  65 

theistic,  and  assumed  that  there  is  nothing  in  evolu- 
tion. Dana  is  more  cautious.  The  present  state  of 
knowledge,  he  says  (Greology,  pp.  603,  604),  favors 
the  theory  that  "  the  evolution  of  the  system  of  life 
went  forvvard  through  the  derivation  of  species  from 
species,  according  to  natural  methods  not  clearly 
understood,  and  with  few  occasions  for  supernatural 
intervention.  The  method  of  evolution  admitted 
of  abrupt  transitions  between  species ;  but  for  the 
development  of  man  there  was  required  the  special 
act  of  a  being  above  Nature,  whose  supreme  will 
is  the  source  of  natural  law."  Huxley  has  come; 
Huxley  has  spoken ;  Huxley  has  gone ;  and  Dana, 
over  Agassiz's  grave,  joins  hands  with  Agassiz  in 
the  Unseen  Holy,  to  affirm  that  man  is  the  breath  of 
God.  [Applause.] 

It  is  notorious  that  evolutionists  concede, 

37.  That  "molecular  law  is  the  profoundest  ex- 
pression of  the  Divine  Will."     This  is  Dana's  lan- 
guage (Am.  Jour.,  October,  1876,  p.  250). 

38.  That,  therefore,  even  if  the  nebular  hypothe- 
sis be  accepted,  design  in  creation  yet  stands  proved. 

39.  That,  even  if  spontaneous  generation  under 
molecular  law  were  demonstrated,  the  fact  of  design 
in  creation  would  yet  stand  proved. 

If  you  will  elaborately  master  Professor  Stanley 
Jevons's  famous  work  on  the  "  Principles  of  Science," 
you  probably  will  come  to  his  theistic  conclusions, 
even  if  you  believe  in  the  possibility  of  spontaneous 
generation  under  molecular  law.  We  have  had  im- 
portant works  on  the  logical  method  and  order,  from 


66  BIOLOGY. 

Aristotle  to  Kant  and  Hamilton ;  and  yet,  Professor 
Pierce  of  Harvard  being  judge,  there  have  been  few 
more  important  productions  on  that  theme  than  the 
"  Principles  of  Science,"  by  Stanley  Jevons,  professor 
of  logic  and  political  economy  at  Owens,' s  College 
Manchester.  He  is  an  evolutionist;  but  he  is  also  a 
logician. 

"  I  cannot,"  he  says,  "for  a  moment  admit  that  tlie 
theory  of  evolution  will  alter  our  theological  ideas.  .  .  . 
The  precise  reason  why  we  have  a  backbone,  two 
hands  with  opposable  thumbs,  an  erect  stature,  a 
complex  brain,  about  two  hundred  and  twenty-three 
bones,  and  many  other  peculiarities,  is  only  to  be 
found  in  the  original  act  of  creation.  I  do  not,  any 
less  than  Paley,  believe  that  the  eye  of  man  manifests 
design.  I  believe  that  the  eye  was  gradually  devel- 
oped ;  but  the  ultimate  result  must  have  been  contained 
in  the  aggregate  of  causes  ;  and  these,  so  far  as  we  can 
see,  were  subject  to  the  arbitrary  choice  of  the  Creat- 
or "  [applause]  ( JEVONS,  PROFESSOR  W.  STANLEY, 
Principles  of  Science,  vol.  ii.  pp.  461,  462). 

It  is  notorious  that  even  Tyndall  concedes, 

40.  That  if  a  right-hand  spiral  movement  of  the 
particles  of  the  brain  could  be  shown  to  occur  in 
love,  and   a  left-hand  spiral  movement  in  hate,  we 
should  be  as  far  off  as  ever  from  understanding  the 
connection  of  this  physical  motion  with  the  spiritual 
manifestations  (Fragments  of  Science,  pp.  120,  121). 

It  is  conceded  by  Dana, 

41.  That  the  possession  by  man  of  free-will  and 
conscience  shows  that  he  must  have  been  brought 


THE   CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  07 

into  existence  by  a  being  at  least  as  perfect  as  him- 
self; that  is,  by  an  agency  possessing  free-will  and 
conscience. 

42.  That  evolutionists  are  of  two  schools, — the  ex- 
travagant and  the  moderate,  or  the  wholesale  and  the 
discriminating ;  and  that  the  former  do,  and  the  latter 
do  not,  account  for  man  by  the  theory  of  evolution. 

Hackel  concedes, 

43.  That  the  theory  of  man's  descent  from  apes  is, 
according  to  the  admission  of  the  wholesale  evolu- 
tionists, deductive,  and  not  inductive,  —  a  result  of 
speculation,  and  not  of  observation. 

44.  That  it  probably  can  never  be  established  by 
the  inductive,  that  is,  by  the  most  strictly  scientific 
method. 

Do  you  suppose  that  I  think  that  this  audience 
can  be  cheated?  I  do  not  know  where  in  America 
there  is  another  weekly  audience  with  as  many  brains 
in  it ;  at  least  I  do  not  know  where  in  New  England 
I  should  be  so  likely  to  be  tripped  up  if  I  were  to 
make  an  incorrect  statement,  as  here.  "  The  process 
of  deduction,"  says  Hackel,  "  is  not  based  upon  any 
direct  experience.  Induction  is  a  .logical  system  of 
forming  conclusions  from  the  special  to  the  general, 
by  which  we  advance  from  many  individual  experi- 
ences to  a  general  law.  Deduction,  on  the  other 
hand,  draws  conclusion  from  the  general  to  the 
special,  from  a  general  law  of  nature  to  an  individual 
case.  Thus  the  theory  of  descent  is,  without  doubt,  a 
great  inductive  law,  empirically  based  upon  all  bio- 
logical experience.  The  theory,  on  the  other  hand, 


68  BIOLOGY. 

which  asserts  that  man  has  developed  out  of  lower, 
and,  in  the  first  place,  out  of  ape-like  mammals,  is  a 
deductive  law  inseparably  connected  with  the  general 
inductive  law  "  (HACKEL'S  History  of  Creation,  vol.  ii. 
p.  357). 

The  theory  of  man's  origin  from  apes  is  not  based 
upon  direct  experience.  Merely  deductive  conclu- 
sions from  circumstantial  evidence  are  sometimes 
lawful.  We  do  not  know  all  about  the  worlds  be- 
yond the  sweep  of  the  telescope ;  but  so  firmly  is  the 
theory  of  gravitation  established  that  we  believe  that, 
if  a  new  world  should  be  discovered,  it  would  be 
found  to  be  under  the  law  of  gravitation.  If  you  will 
prove  by  induction  the  system  of  evolution  as  thoroughly 
as  the  Copernican  system  has  been  proved  by  induction, 
you  may  then  fill  gaps  by  deduction.  Astronomers  pre- 
dict sometimes  that  eclipses  will  occur,  and  they  do 
occur  according  to  prediction ;  and  we  think,  there- 
fore, that  we  have  ascertained  something  conclusive 
as  to  the  mechanism  of  the  heavens.  If  evolutionists 
can  by  selective  breeding  produce  from  the  same  stock 
two  varieties  so  widely  differing  that  their  crossing  will 
produce  sterile  hybrids,  then  Twill  say  that  they  have  a 
scientific  right  to  fill  up  by  deduction  the  gaps  in  the 
direct  evidences  of  evolution,  and  not  till  then.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Professor  Hackel  further  concedes, 

45.  That  "  most  naturalists,  even  at  the  present  day, 
are  inclined  to  give  up  the  attempt  at  natural  explana- 
tion "  of  the  origin  of  life,  "  and  take  refuge  in  the 
miracle  of  inconceivable  creation  "  (HACKEL'S  History 
of  Creation,  vol.  i.  p.  327). 


THE   CONCESSIONS   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS.  6& 

The  trouble  with  your  small  philosopher- in  Massa- 
chusetts and  England  is,  that  he  out-Darwins  Darwin 
and  out-Hiickels  Hackel.  It  is  important,  at  times, 
that  the  pulpit  should  show  that  it  is  not  afraid  of 
these  topics ;  and  you  will  notice,  that,  in  this  Lec- 
tureship, the  theme  of  evolution  is  not  skipped. 

You  will  pardon  me  one  further  word  on  Bathy- 
bius,  which  Professor  St.  George  Mivart  calls  a  sea- 
mare's  nest. 

"  No  more  of  that,  Hal,  an  thou  lovest  me." 

Hackel  has  minutely  figured  Bathybius  in  the 
plates  of  his  most  elaborate  works.  Huxley  named 
it  from  Hackel,  Bathylius  HdckeliL  Strauss  rested 
on  Bathybius  the  central  arch  of  his  argument 
against  the  supernatural. 

It  was  the  haughty  claim  of  Huxley  and  Strauss 
and  Hackel, 

46.  That  Bathybius  is  an  organism  without  organs. 

47.  That  it  performs  the   acts   of  nutrition   and 
propagation. 

48.  That,  with  other  organisms  like  itself,  it  stands 
at  the  head  of  the  terrestrial  history  of  the  devel- 
opment of  life. 

49.  That  it  spans  the  chasm  between  the  living 
and  the  not  living. 

50.  That  it  renders  belief  in  miracle  impossible. 
Hackel  makes  Bathybius  a  stem  from  which  all 

terrestrial  life  divides,  and  comes  to  its  present  state 
{History  of  Creation,  vol.  i.  pp.  184,  344,  and  vol.  ii. 
p.  53).  It  would  not  be  worth  much  for  me  here  to 


70  BIOLOGY. 

cut  down  this  or  that  bough  in  the  great  tree  ;  but  if, 
with  the  latest  scientific  intelligence,  I  may  strike 
at  its  bottom  stem,  Bathybius,  I  shall  have  done 
something.  You  must  not  think  that  students  of 
religious  science  have  no  right  to  be  interested  in 
this  classical  organism.  We  have  heard  of  it  in  theo- 
logical works.  We  had  it  thrust  in  our  faces  as 
proof  that  a  miracle  is  impossible.  We  therefore  are 
interested,  when,  walking  past  our  bookstores,  we  can 
pick  up  the  yet  fresh  sheets  of  the  American  Jour- 
nal of  Science  and  Arts,  and  turn  to  a  passage  on 
Bathybius  in  an  article  on  the  voyage  of  the  ship 
Challenger.  Will  gentlemen  here  do  themselves 
the  justice,  and  this  topic  the  justice,  to  read  this 
authoritative  intelligence  (October  number,  pp.  267, 
268)  ?  You  will  find  there  this  closing  concession :  — 
51.  That  Bathybius  has  been  discovered  in  1875 
by  the  ship  Challenger  to  be  —  hear,  O  heavens ! 
and  give  ear,  O  earth  !  —  sulphate  of  lime ;  and  that, 
when  dissolved,  it  crystallizes  as  gypsum.  [Applause.] 


IV. 

THE  MICROSCOPE  AND  MATERIALISM, 

THE    FORTY- NINTH    LECTURE    IN    THE    BOSTON    MONDAY  LEC- 
TURESHIP,   DELIVERED   IN   THE   MEIONAON   OCT.    23. 


irrpvov,  GKioeidea  <f>i)7i' 

ARISTOPHANES:  Aves, 

Blut  ist  ein  ganz  besonderer  Saft. 

Die  Geisterwelt  ist  niclit  verschlossen; 
Dein  Sinn  ist  zu,  dein  Herz  ist  todt! 
Auf!  bade,  Sch  tiler,  unverdrossen 
Die  ird'sche  Brust  im  Merge nroth. 

GOETHE:  Faust. 


IV. 
THE    MICROSCOPE  AND    MATERIALISM. 

PLATO  in  his  Pheedon  represents  Socrates  as  say- 
ing in  the  last  hour  of  his  life  to  his  inconsolable  fol- 
lowers, "  You  may  bury  me  if  you  can  catch  me." 
He  then  added  with  a  smile,  and  an  intonation  of 
unfathomable  thought  and  tenderness,  "  Do  not  call 
this  poor  body  Socrates.  When  I  have  drunk  the 
poison,  I  shall  leave  you,  and  go  to  the  joys  of  the 
blessed.  I  would  not  have  you  sorrow  at  my  hard 
lot,  or  say  at  the  interment,  '  Thus  we  lay  out  Soc- 
rates ; '  or, '  Thus  we  follow  him  to  the  grave,  and  bury 
him.'  Be  of  good  cheer  :  .say  that  you  are  burying  my 
body  only "  (PLATO,  Phcedon,  115 ;  JOWETT'S  Plato, 
vol.  i.  pp.  465,  466;  QUOTE'S  Plato,  vol.  ii.  p.  193). 

Materialism  teaches  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
universe  but  matter  and  its  laws ;  that  there  is  no 
spiritual  substance  ;  and  that  what  is  called  mind  or 
soul  in  a  man  is  but  a  mode  of  force  and  motion  in 
matter,  and  cannot  exist  in  separation  from  the  body. 

If  materialism  is  the  truth,  you  and  I  cannot  die 
as  well  as  Socrates  did.  If  that  part  of  us  which 
thinks  and  loves  and  chooses  is  not  separable  from 

73 


74  BIOLOGY. 

our  present  material  frames,  our  souls  are  like  the 
electrical  charges  in  the  glands  of  the  poor  torpedo- 
fishes,  certain  to  cease  to  exist  as  soon  as  the  cells 
which  originate  them  have  been  dissolved.  On  the 
Peruvian  coasts  of  South  America,  men  drive  horses 
down  to  the  edge  of  the  great  deep,  in  order  that  they 
may  receive  shocks  from  electric-eels ;  and  sometimes 
the  hoof  of  a  horse  will  smite  the  life  out  of  one  of 
his  tormentors;  and  then  the  wrecked  swimming 
creature  ceases  forever  to  be  an  electric  battery, 
because  the  cells  in  which  the  electricity  originated 
are  destroyed  once  for  all.  Now,  materialism  is  the 
doctrine  that  the  soul  is  in  some  sense  secreted  by  the 
brain,  as  electricity  is  by  the  cells  of  the  torpedo-fish 
or  electric-eel,  and  that,  when  the  brain  is  dissolved, 
the  soul  is  no  more.  I  do  not  call  this  an  impious 
inference,  if  it  be,  indeed,  an  inference  fairly  deduci- 
ble  from  facts ;  truth  is  truth,  even  if  it  sears  our 
eyeballs ;  I  call  it,  however,  a  withering  inference.  I 
am  not  prejudiced  against  any  conclusion  reached 
through  clear  ideas ;  but  the  momentous  issues  in- 
volved in  the  affirmations  of  materialism  make  me 
anxious  to  look  into  these  cells,  which  Hiickel  and 
Biichner  and  Moleschott  say  originate  the  soul.  Ca- 
banis,  as  Carlyle  narrates  with  grimmest  humor, 
thought  the  brain  secreted  soul  as  the  liver  does  bile. 
This  philosophy,  and  the  gospel  according  to  Jean- 
Jacques,  were,  we  know,  two  of  the  broadest  and 
blackest  of  the  far-flapping  Gehenna  wings  that 
fanned  the  furnaces  of  the  French  Revolution. 
It  is  not  commonly  known,  except  among  special- 


THE  MICROSCOPE  AND  MATERIALISM.  75 

ists  in  microscopical  physiology,  that  the  latest  science 
has  something  to  say  to  us  of  immense  import  as  to 
the  relations  of  matter  and  life.  That  theme  comes 
home  to  the  business  and  bosoms  of  all  men ;  and, 
whatever  be  the  verdict  of  full  investigation,  all  will 
be  eager  to  face  it,  who  seek,  as  we  do  here,  whatever 
is  new  and  true  and  strategic  in  religious  thought. 
On  the  doctrine  of  organic  cells  and  living  tissues, 
there  is  surely  no  book  over  fifteen  years  old  that  is 
not  largely  worthless.  A  text-book  on  geology,  it  is 
often  said,  is  out  of  date  as  soon  as  it  is  printed.  So 
swift  has  been  the  advance  of  microscopic  investiga- 
tion, that  our  cell-theory,  which  began  to  be  elabo- 
rated in  1838,  has  made  its  supreme  advances  since 
1860.  "  All  life  from  a  cell :  "  we  have  heard  that 
doctrine  since  1840.  "  All  life  from  bioplasm,"  which 
is  the  core  of  the  organic  cell,  we  have  heard  as  a 
scientific  truth  since  about  1860.  The  first  physio- 
logical microscopist  in  the  English-speaking  world  is 
now  Professor  Lionel  Beale  of  King's  College,  London ; 
and  his.  work  on  "  Protoplasm,  or  Matter  and  Life," 
published  with  elaborate  original  plates,  some  of  which 
are  of  as  late  a  date  as  1874,  is  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant contributions  made  to  knowledge  recently  by  any 
original  investigator  of  this  central  question  of  ques- 
tions, —  whether,  when  the  cells  of  the  brain  are  dis- 
solved, the  soul,  like  so  much  electricity,  developed 
through  them,  is  dissipated  forever. 

You  remember,  gentlemen,  that  in  Dresden  the 
great  picture  of  the  Madonna  di  San  Sisto  has  an  inte- 
rior which  everywhere  suggests  an  ineffable  exterior. 


76  BIOLOGY. 

Many  look  upon  that  painting,  and  study  the  hushed, 
shoreless  awe  and  self-surrender  of  the  eyes  of  the 
cherubs  in  the  lower  part  of  the  transfigured  canvas, 
and  do  not  ask  on  what,  the  cherubs  are  looking. 
But  to  cause  the  observer  to  ask  that,  is  the  chief 
object  of  this  inspired  part  of  the  painting.  The 
Madonna  di  San  Sisto  was  made  for  an  altar-piece.  It 
was  intended  to  stand  before  burning  incense.  In  a 
great  cathedral  its  place  would  be  behind  the  altar, 
on  which  incense  is  burned  to  ascend  to  an  unseen 
but  near  Holy  of  holies.  It  is  on  the  central  Ineffa 
ble  Presence  before  the  picture,  and  to  which  the 
incense  rises,  that  these  supernaturally  intense  eyes 
of  the  cherubs  are  looking.  Santa  Barbara,  as  you 
will  observe,  divides  her  adoration  between  the  Son  in 
the  arms  of  the  mother  and  the  Unspeakable  Unseen 
before  him.  Another  kneeling  figure  looks  toward 
what  is  within,  but  points  to  what  is  without.  Even 
the  eyes  of  the  Son  and  the  mother  gather  mysteri- 
ous, measureless  strength  from  the  Unseen  Ineffable 
to  which  the  incense  rises.  To  me,  for  one,  that 
which  is  exterior  in  this  most  celebrated  painting  of 
all  time  is  more  impressive  than  that  which  is  inte- 
rior. If  you  look  on  the  interior,  there  in  the  back- 
ground, and  not  noticeable  at  first,  but  filling  all  the 
ambient  air  behind  the  mother  and  the  Son,  is  a 
cloud  made  up  of  innumerable  blissful  faces  of  super- 
natural beings  in  eternal  youth.  But  when  at  Dres- 
den, day  after  day  for  a  month,  I  studied  the  paint- 
ing, I  always  forgot  these  in  the  Central  Presence 
to  which  the  incense  ascends;  and  I  went  away 


THE  MICROSCOPE  AND  MATERIALISM.  77 

always  in  a  kind  of  trance.  I  know  nothing  in  art 
that  moves  me  as  much  as  the  Unseen  Holy  suggested 
before  that  picture. 

Will  you  follow  me  long  enough  to-day,  my  friends, 
to  find  out  that  this  Madonna  di  San  Sisto  of  Raphael, 
whose  interior  suggests  an  ineffable  exterior,  is  a  true 
analogue  of  the  cell,  —  God  and  the  soul  without, 
inert  matter  within,  —  every  movement  of  the  lattei 
pointing  to  the  former  as  its  only  adequate  cause. 
Come  near  enough  to  this  Madonna  painting  of  Al- 
mighty God,  and  you  will  be  convinced  that  it  was 
the  purpose  of  the  Artist  to  make  the  interior  sug- 
gest the  ineffable  exterior.  [Applause.] 

When  we  study  living  matter  with  the  highest 
powers  of  the  microscope,  and  under  the  lead  of  the 
best  original  investigators,  what  does  the  latest  sci- 
ence see  ? 

1.  That  nothing  that  lives  is  alive  in  every  part. 

2.  That  the   substance  of  every  living  organism 
consists  of  three  parts, 

(1.)  Nutrient  matter,  or  pabulum. 

(2.)  Germinal  matter,  or  bioplasm. 

(3.)  Formed  matter,  or  tissue,  secretion  and  de- 
posit. 

As  you  stand  on  some  murmurous  shore  of  a  tropi- 
cal sea,  and  pick  up  a  beautifully  colored  shell,  with 
its  occupant  yet  in  it,  you  easily  perceive  a  difference 
between  the  living  and  the  not-living  part  of  that 
organism.  No  doubt  the  shell  grows  ;  and  yet,  even 
while  the  animal  bears  it  about  upon  his  back,  parts 
of  the  shell  are  as  truly  inanimate  as  they  are  when 


78  BIOLOGY. 

afterward  the  painted  wonder  lies  on  the  shelf  of  your 
cabinet.  The  shell  grows,  but  not  in  every  part,  if 
it  be  of  mature  size.  It  increases  its  bulk  chiefly  by 
additions  of  matter  at  its  edges  and  on  its  interior ; 
and  these  increments  are  made  by  a  process  of 
growth  in  the  softer  parts  of  the  organism.  We 
ourselves  do  not  carry  very  large  shells  about  upon 
our  persons ;  but  the  finger-tips  are  incased  in  deli- 
cate shells,  of  which  by  no  means  every  particle  is 
living.  It  once  has  been  living ;  but  when  you  pare 
matter  away  from  the  back  of  a  shell,  or  from  the 
edge  of  the  finger-nail,  you  find  a  very  great  distinc- 
tion between  it  and  the  quick  flesh  that  is  touched 
in  a  nerve.  Four-fifths  of  the  bulk  of  most  organ- 
isms, animal  and  vegetable,  is  made  up  of  formed 
matter.  Only  one-fifth  is  really  alive. 

Into  the  centre  of  every  organic  cell  there  flows  a 
current  of  nutrient  matter,  or  pabulum  ;  and  this  may 
be  wh.olly  inorganic.  It  may  be  gas ;  it  may  be  a 
mineral  compound ;  it  may  be  formed  material  from 
meats  and  fruits.  In  a  cell  [referring  to  a  figure 
the  speaker  drew  upon  the  blackboard]  this  nutrient 
matter  is  first  transformed  into  living  matter,  and 
next  the  living  matter  is  thrown  off  as  formed  mate- 
rial, to  make  the  cell-wall.  There  are  two  currents 
in  an  organic  cell,  —  one  flowing  inward,  and  convey- 
ing nutrient  matter  with  it ;  the  other  outward,  and 
bearing  with  it  formed  material. 

In  the  centre  of  the  cell,  by  a  process  that  cannot 
be  explained  by  chemistry  or  any  physical  science, 
the  nutrient  matter  is  changed  into  living  matter. 


THE  MICROSCOPE  AND  MATERIALISM.  79 

At  the  outer  edge  of  the  cell,  formed  material  ac- 
cumulates, and  is  in  some  cases  tissue,  in  some  secre- 
tion, in  some  an  osseous  deposit. 

You  have  now,  I  hope,  gentlemen,  a  distinct  idea 
of  the  three  kinds  of  matter  which  are  to  be  found 
in  all  living  organisms,  —  pabulum  or  nutrient  mat- 
ter, bioplasm  or  germinal  matter,  tissue  or  formed 
matter.  There  are  no  living  organisms,  vegetable  or 
animal,  that  are  not  made  up  wholly  of  these  three 
kinds  of  matter. 

It  is  only  within  a  comparatively  few  years  that 
we  have  been  able  to  demonstrate  under  the  micro- 
scope the  existence  of  this  distinction  between  the 
inner  portions  of 'the  cell  and  the  cell-wall.  Why,  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  himself,  down  to  1853,  considered  the 
core  of  the  cell  as  of  little  importance,  and  as  having 
no  peculiar  office  ("  The  Cell-Theory,"  Medical  Chir. 
Rev.,  October,  1853).  He  has  changed  his  opinion 
now  on  that  point,  as  on  several  others  concerning 
the  cell-theory;  and  this  fact  is  not  to  his  discredit 
at  all,  because  the  microscopial  study  of  living  mat- 
ter is  advancing  so  rapidly,  that  theories  of  1850  and 
1860  must  often  be  abandoned. 

Professor  Lionel  Beale,  who  is  an  accepted  authority 
as  to  this  class  of  facts,  however  much  his  inferences, 
which  I  do  not  now  present  to  you,  may  be  objection- 
able to  materialists,  has  made  large  use  of  a  most 
important  process  of  staining  living  tissue  by  a  solu- 
tion of  carmine  in  ammonia.  That  particular  solution 
makes  red  whatever  is  living  in  a  tissue,  and  does 
not  color  formed  material.  When  you  drench  a  tis- 


80  BIOLOGY. 

sue  in  that  solution  of  carmine  in  ammonia,  you  take 
it  out  with  all  the  bioplasts  stained  red.  This  dis- 
covery has  been  a  source  of  great  advances  in  our 
knowledge  of  living  tissues,  so  many  of  the  ultimate 
parts  of  which  are  colorless,  and  as  difficult  as  water 
to  dissect  optically.  Fastening  the  highest  magnify- 
ing power  upon  tissue  prepared  by  this  carmine  pro- 
cess, what  do  we  see  ? 

3.  That  germinal  points,  or  bioplasts,  are  scattered 
so  pervadingly  through  all  organic  structures  that  in 
no  organism  is  there  a  space  one  five-hundredth  of 
an  inch  square  without  a  germinal  point,  or  bioplast. 

We  are  sure  to  find,  in  any  piece  of  living  matter 
of  that  size,  a  bioplast  that  will  color  red  in  a  solu- 
tion of  carmine  in  ammonia. 

4.  That  the  germinal  points,  or  bioplasts,  are  the 
only  living  matter. 

5.  That  all  formed  matter  has  once  been  living 
matter,  and  so  differs  totally  from  inorganic  matter. 

Every  particle  of  your  oyster-shell  has  once  been 
living,  growing  matter,  although  it  now  is  dead ;  and 
yet,  although  inanimate,  it  is  not  inorganic.  The 
shaggiest  back  of  an  oyster  is  matter  of  a  totally 
different  kind  from  that  of  the  sand  and  clay  and 
pebbles  of  which  it  makes  a  couch.  Every  particle 
of  your  muscle,  nerve,  or  bone,  has  once  been  a  bio- 
plast. 

I  use  the  word  "  bioplasm  "  instead  of  "  protoplasm," 
because  it  is  a  more  definite  term.  It  means  always 
that  germinal  substance  which  has  the  power  of  trans- 
muting not-living  into  living  matter,  and  of  movement, 


THE   MICKOSCOPE   AND  MATERIALISM.  81 

of  self-multiplication,  and  of  producing  formed  mate- 
rial. "  Protoplasm  "  is  a  word  that  has  been  applied  to 
so  many  different  styles  of  matter,  that  its  indefinite- 
ness  in  present  usage  is  a  frequent  source  of  confusion 
of  thought  in  biological  discussions.  "Bioplasm" 
and  "bioplasts"  are  words  which  "agree  well  with 
"  biology,"  the  accepted  name  of  one  of  the  greatest 
of  the  sciences. 

6.  That  in  the  cell  of  an  organic  tissue  the  central 
portion  is  always  a  bioplast. 

7.  That  nutrient  matter  for  the  bioplasts  may  con- 
sist of  inorganic  matter,  or  of  formed  matter. 

8.  That  the  bioplasts   convert   the   nutrient  into 
living  matter,  and  the  living  into  formed  matter. 

9.  That  the  transmutation  of  the  not-living  into 
the  living  occurs  in  the  bioplasts  instantaneously. 

You  will  read  in  the  older  physiologies  that  all 
tissues  are  made  up  of  cells ;  and  that  is,  of  course, 
true ;  but  you  must  not  suppose  that  it  is  the  latest 
doctrine  that  the  cell  is  the  object  of  supreme  inter- 
est in  living  tissue.  The  cell-wall  is  formed  matter. 
The  bioplast  is  the  unit  of  growth.  Bioplasm  may 
exist  without  an  enveloping  wall.  It  may  be  a  bio- 
plast, and  not  a  cell.  You  may  have  expected  me  to 
say  much  about  cells  and  the  cellular  theory ;  and  I 
am  talking  about  bioplasts  and  the  bioplasmic  theory., 
The  theory  of  bioplasts  has  superseded  the  theory  of 
cells,  or  rather  has  given  to  the  latter  more  definite- 
ness  ;  so  that  now  we  speak  of  cells  with  meanings 
derived  from  bioplasts. 

10.  That  the  cell-wall  is  formed  matter,  and  not 


82  BIOLOGY. 

alive,  and  not  necessary  to  the  work  of  transmuta* 
tion  affected  by  the  bioplast. 

11.  That  bioplasts  always  arise  from  previous  bio- 
plasts. 

12.  That  they  have  the  power  of  self-movement 
in  any  direction. 

13.  That  they  are  capable  of  self-subdivision. 

14.  That  each  portion  of   a  self-divided  bioplast 
has  the  same  powers  as  its  parent  bioplast. 

15.  That,  when  dead,  bioplasts  cannot  be  resusci- 
tated. 

Let  us  pause  here  for  a  moment  to  notice  leisurely 
the  confusion  of  thought  of  those  who  compare  this 
transmutation  of  the  not-living  into  the  living,  with 
the  formation  of  a  crystal.  I  can  form  a  crystal  and 
dissolve  it,  and  form  a  crystal  again  out  of  the  solu- 
tion. I  can  take  two  gases,  and  mix  them,  and  pro- 
duce water ;  and  then,  by  an  easy  chemical  process, 
I  can  change  the  water  into  these  two  gases ;  and  I 
can  do  this,  back  and  forth,  any  number  of  times. 
But,  gentlemen,  if  a  bioplast  is  once  dead,  it  cannot 
be  resuscitated.  Materialists  talk  about  the  process 
of  life  being  a  kind  of  "  vital  crystallization,"  what- 
ever that  may  mean.  Be  sure  that  you  hold  to 
clear  ideas.  Revere  the  orthodoxy  of  straight- 
forwardness. [Applause.]  I  want  no  philosophy,  no 
platform,  no  pulpit,  no  dying-pillow,  that  does  not  rest 
on  rendered  reasons.  Owen,  who  fifteen  years  ago 
wrote  his  great  work  on  the  "  Anatomy  of  the  Verte- 
brates," opposed  in  it  Darwinism.  He  called  that 
system  as  a  whole  a  "  guess  endeavor."  As  others 


THE  MICROSCOPE  AND  MATERIALISM.  83 

were  guessing,'  he  himself  ventured  to  guess  how  the 
chasm  between  the  not-living  and  the  living  might  be 
bridged.  Fifteen  years  ago,  Dr.  Lionel  Beale  did  not 
stand  as  a  lion  in  the  way  of  such  guessing.  Owen 
put  forward  as  a  possible  hypothesis  that  we  shall 
find  out  some  day  that  there  is  "molecular  ma- 
chinery" that  accounts  for  the  phenomena  of  life. 
He  thinks  life  in  its  simplest  forms  may  perhaps  be 
compared  to  the  power  a  magnet  exerts  when  it 
attracts  certain  particles  to  itself,  and  rejects  others. 
It  seems  to  have  the  power  of  selection.  You  might 
say  that  the  magnet  is  feeding  itself  to  see  how  it 
draws  up  to  itself  metallic  dust.  But  the  reply  to 
all  that  is,  You  may  magnetize  and  demagnetize  your 
poor  iron  any  number  of  times;  but  kill  once  the 
smallest  living  organism,  and  there  is  no  remagnetiz- 
ing  that.  You  may  change  your  magnet  from  state 
to  state,  as  you  may  change  water  to  gases,  and  gases 
to  water.  You  may  braid  and  uribraid  the  threads  of 
any  inorganic  whip-lash  again  and  again,  but  once 
unbraid  any  living  strands,  and  there  is  no  braiding 
them  together  again  forever.  [Applause.] 

16.  That  what  the  bioplasts  effect  in  the  transmu- 
tation of  nutrient  into  living  matter,  and  of  the  latter 
into  formed  material,  chemistry  can  neither  imitate 
nor  explain. 

You  must  not  allow  yourself  to  fall  into  doubt  as 
to  the  attitude  of  materialistic  philosophers  on  this 
proposition.  Who  is  Hackel  ?  He  is  a  materialist. 
What  is  a  materialist  ?  One  who  denies  that  there 
is  any  spiritual  substance  in  the  universe,  and  affirms 


34  BIOLOGY. 

that  matter  is  the  only  thing  that  exists.  Can 
Hackel  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  ?  It 
is  a  mild  statement  to  say  that  he  must  be  in  grave 
doubt  about  it.  Can  Hackel  believe  in  God  ?  He 
sa3"s  in  so  many  words  that  "  there  is  no  God  but 
necessity."  What  does  Hackel  affirm  concerning 
the  ability  of  chemistry  to  bridge  the  colossal  chasm 
between  the  living  and  the  not-living  ?  That  it  is 
powerless  to  do  so.  That  it  is  impotent  to  explain 
how  inorganic  is  transmuted  into  organic  matter. 
There  is  nothing  in  chemistry  that  can  produce  life. 
I  asked  a  friend  who  lately  took  his  degree  in  chem- 
istry at  Gottingen  what  was  thought  there  about  the 
possibility  of  producing  in  the  laboratory  any  par- 
allels to  the  action  of  the  bioplasts.  "  We  have 
given  up,"  said  he,  "  the  idea  that  we  can  make 
things  grow."  "  Most  naturalists  of  our  time,"  says 
Hackel,  "are  inclined  to  give  up  the  attempt  to 
account  for  the  origin  of  life  by  natural  causes  "  {His- 
tory of  Creation,  vol.  i.  p.  327).  DuBois  Reymond 
says,  "  It  is  futile  to  attempt  by  chemistry  to  bridge 
the  chasm  between  the  living  and  the  not-living." 

In  the  bioplast  occurs  a  change  which  is  a  sealed 
volume  to  the  deepest  physical  science.  Here  is  the 
not-living,  and  there  is  the  living ;  and  instantane- 
ously the  change  of  the  former  into  the  latter  is 
effected.  You  look  with  your  microscope  upon  thf3 
centre  of  the  bioplast,  and  what  do  you  see?  Little 
germinal  points  arising  in  the  centre,  and  enlarging. 
The  bioplast  seems  to  boil  bioplasts  from  its  centre. 
It  moves.  It  divides  itself  here  before  our  eyes 


THE  MICROSCOPE  AND  MATERIALISM.  85 

[illustrating  on  the  blackboard].  It  throbs.  You 
watch  it  under  your  microscope.  The  viscid  mass 
is  throwing  out  a  promontory  here  and  a  promontory 
there,  against  gravitation,  and  contrary  to  all  we 
know  of  chemical  force.  Suddenly  there  come  great 
inlets  here  and  there ;  and  soon  your  one  bioplast  has 
made  of  itself  two  bioplasts.  Each  of  the  new  l:'o- 
plasts  continues  to  receive  nutriment ;  and  in  its 
interior  the  mysterious  transmutation  of  the  not- 
living  into'  the  living,  and  the  preparation  of  formed 
material,  go  on  again.  Each  will  divide  again ;  and 
thus,  little  by  little,  we  find  formed  matter  woven  at 
the  edge  of  these  creeping  bioplasts  into  —  what  ? 
Nerve,  bone,  muscle,  artery.  We  find  the  not-living 
changed  into  the  living,  and  formed  material  thrown 
off  —  how  ?  So  as  to  produce  all  the  tissues  of  the 
body. 

Your  microscope  demonstrates  that  the  little  bio- 
plast has  not  only  the  throbbing  movement,  and 
power  of  self-multiplication,  but  of  rectilinear  move- 
ment also.  Once  this  bioplast  was  here.  .  It  threw 
off  formed  material ;  and  that  formed  material  flows 
away  behind  it  as  your  thread  flows  from  your  spin- 
dle. It  flows  away  here  —  as  what  ?  As  an  incipi- 
ent nerve.  But  here  another  group  of  bioplasts 
spin,  and  a  thread  flows  away  —  as  what  ?  As  mus- 
cular fibre.  There  you  weave  your  nerve,  there 
your  muscle,  there  your  bone,  and  there  your  artery. 
The  bioplasts  move  on ;  they  convert  constantly  the 
nutrient  material  into  living  matter,  and  throw  off 
formed  material;  and  whea  at  last  this  thread  is 


8ti  BIOLOGY. 

wound,  it  has  a  contractile  quality.  When  that  is 
wound,  it  has  the  power  of  transmitting  what  we  call 
the  nervous  force ;  or,  when  the  other  is  wound,  it  is 
the  beginning  of  a  bone  :  when  this  other,  that  is  the 
commencement  of  an  artery;  or  when  this  other, 
that  is  an  incipient  vein. 

We  stand  in  awe  before  this  action  of  the  bioplasts 
as  incoritrovertibly  indicating  intelligence  somewhere. 
If  you  please,  when  the  egg  begins  to  quicken,  must 
not  the  whole  plan  of  your  eagle,  or  of  your  lion,  be 
kept  in  view  from  the  first  stroke  of  the  shuttles  ? 
It  is  something  to  weave  a  nerve,  is  it  not  ?  It  is 
enough  to  keep  us  on  our  knees  to  know  that  this 
little  mass  of  colorless,  viscid,  and,  under  the  micro- 
scope, apparently  structureless  matter,  can  weave 
osseous,  muscular,  and  nervous  fibres.  But  what  if 
they  can  not  only  spin  these  different  threads,  but 
also  weave  them  into  warp  and  woof  ?  I  am  putting 
before  you  facts  that  are  not  controverted  at  all. 
Dr.  Carpenter  adopts  these  views  in  the  latest  edi- 
tion of  his  famous  "  Physiology."  They  are  wholly 
authoritative  statements  of  what  goes  on  in  every 
living  tissue.  Among  materialists  and  anti-mate- 
rialists, as  they  walk  over  this  high  table-land  of 
science,  there  is,  I  assure  you,  my  friends,  unanimity 
as  to  essential  facts  at  present ;  and  by  and  by,  per- 
haps, there  will  be  unanimity  as  to  inferences  from 
facts.  My  belief  is,  that  these  facts  should  be  put 
before  all  scholars,  and  not  kept  from  the  masses. 
[Applause.]  The  members  of  the  legal,  clerical,  and 
literary  professions,  are  trained  in  the  logical  method 


THE  MICROSCOPE  AND  MATERIALISM.  87 

as  mercilessly  as  physicists  are,  and  have  a  right  to 
test  reasoning,  even  where  they  cannot  for  themselves 
verify  facts.  When  I  stand  here  before  lawyers,  and 
before  learned  ministers,  and  before  scholars  better 
informed  than  I  have  had  opportunity  to  be  on  these 
great  themes,  I  feel,  that,  although  not  men  of  sci- 
ence, you  have  the  right  to  test  the  reasoning  of 
science.  I  am  bringing  to  you  here  only  what  are 
conceded  to  be  facts ;  and  you  are  competent  to  test 
the  logic  of  the  facts.  It  is  the  right  of  every  mind 
to  look  into  the  logic  of  whatever  touches  immor- 
tality, the  soul,  and  all  that  is  highest  in  human 
endeavor. 

It  is  beyond  contradiction  that  we  know  that  these 
little  points  of  structureless  matter  spin  the  threads, 
and  weave  the  warp  and  woof,  of  organisms.  But  the 
bioplasts  are  of  apparently  just  the  same  matter  in  the 
eagle  and  in  the  lion.  You  look  into  the  centre  of 
the  egg  of  the  eagle,  and  you  will  see  a  little  mass 
of  colorless,  viscid  substance,  wholly  structureless,  so 
far  as  the  highest  power  of  the  microscope  can  reveal 
its  nature.  But,  when  the  egg  begins  to  quicken, 
there  is  a  different  segmentation  for  each  of  the  four 
great  classes  of  animal  forms.  All  eggs  of  the  class 
of  vertebrates,  for  instance,  begin  their  development 
in  the  same  way,  and  run  on  in  the  same  way  for  a 
while ;  but  your  radiates  begin  another  way,  and 
your  articulates  another.  Examined  by  all  the  phy- 
sical tests  known  to  science,  bioplasm  is  the  same, 
however,  in  your  radiate,  and  articulate,  and  verte- 
brate. 


88  BIOLOGY. 

Take  the  twittering  swallows  under  the  brown 
eaves,  or  your  eagle  on  the  cliff,  or  your  lion  in  his 
lair :  the  egg,  in  each  case,  is  the  source  of  life ;  and, 
when  the  quickening  begins,  there  is  nothing  to  be 
seen  at  the  centre  of  the  egg  but  this  structureless, 
colorless,  viscid  bioplasm.  Nevertheless,  it  divides 
and  subdivides,  and  weaves,  in  the  one  case  a  lion, 
and  in  the  other  a  swallow,  and  in  the  other  an  eagle ; 
and  I  affirm,  in  the  name  of  all  reason,  that,  from  the 
very  first,  the  plan  of  the  whole  organism  must  be  in 
view  somewhere.  [Applause.]  You  know  that  when 
a  temple  is  built,  the  plan  of  it  is  in  the  corner-stone. 
You  know  that  when  the  weaver  strikes  his  shuttle 
for  the  first  time  in  the  finest  product  of  his  art,  the 
whole  plan  of  the  figures  of  the  web  is  before  him. 
We  see  here  the  bioplasts  weaving  their  threads : 
we  then  see  them  co-ordinating  threads  and  co-ordi- 
nating them  so  as,  in  the  one  case,  to  make  your  swal- 
low, in  another  case  to  make  your  eagle,  in  another 
case  to  make  your  lion,  and  in  another  case  to  make 
your  man ;  and  why  shall  we  not  say,  following  the 
law,  that  every  change  must  have  an  adequate  cause, 
that  somewhere  and  somehow  there  is  here  what  all 
this  mechanism  needs,  —  FORECAST  ?  [Applause.] 

What  are  men  talking  about  when  they  attribute 
all  this  to  merely  "molecular  machinery"?  Gen- 
tlemen, it  is  out  of  date  to  say  that  "molecular 
arrangement"  accounts  for  nerve  and  bone  and 
tissue  and  artery  and  vein.  It  is  getting  too  late  to 
say  that  merely  molecular  arrangement  accounts  for 
the  weaving  of  organic  threads  and  the  interweaving 


THE  MICROSCOPE  AND  MATERIALISM.  89 

of  thread  with  thread.  Will  you  consider  what  a 
complicated  process  is  required  to  produce  that  hand 
of  yours,  or  this  eye,  or  this  ear  ?  No  doubt  strange 
powers  come  into  existence  with  the  bioplast.  Every 
bioplast  is  derived  from  a  bioplast:  there  is  your 
structureless  machine,  there  a  little  glue-like,  color- 
less matter  ;  and  that  is  all  there  is.  All  life  begins 
in  the  bioplast;  and  every  bioplast  known  to  man 
has  been  derived  from  a  preceding  bioplast.  Out  of 
what,  then,  came  the  first  one  ?  [Applause.] 

Professor  Huxley  writes  for  "  The  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica  "  an  elaborate  article  on  biology ;  and  in 
the  opening  page  of  it  he  says,  "  The  chasm  between 
the  not-living  and  the  living  the  present  state .  of 
knowledge  cannot  bridge."  Bring  materialism  to 
the  edge  of  that  chasm.  Hackel  calls  the  bioplasts 
plastids,  but  confesses  that -they  are  mysteries.  You 
find  in  them  complicated  processes  going  forward  in 
apparently  structureless  matter.  You  see  chemical 
law  apparently  set  at  defiance.  The  action  of  mate- 
rial forces  appears  to  be  reversed.  Hackel,  over  and 
over,  admits  that  we  cannot  produce  life,  and  that 
we  know  of  nothing  but  bioplasm  that  ever  has 
produced  it;  but  somewhere  and  somehow  in  the 
turmoil  of  a  cooling  planet,  he  thinks,  forsooth,  that 
there  must  have  been  a  cell  originated  by  fortuitous 
concourse  of  atoms,  or  spontaneous  generation. 

Precisely  there  is  the  rock,  gentlemen,  on  which 
both  materialism  and  the  radical  form  of  the  evolu- 
tion theory  wreck  themselves.  There  is,  I  willingly 
admit,  a  use,  as  well  as  an  abuse,  of  the  theory  of 


90  BIOLOGY. 

evolution.  Perhaps  Hackel  and  Huxley  illustrate  its 
abuse :  Dana  illustrates  its  use.  But  when  I  stand 
at  the  side  of  the  chasm  between  the  not-living  and 
the  living,  I,  for  one,  —  face  to  face  with  facts,  and 
all  theory  put  aside,  —  feel  as  I  felt  at  Dresden  before 
that  Ineffable  Holy.  I  am  in  the  presence  of 
Almighty  God.  Every  change  must  have  an  adequate 
cause  ;  and  the  organic  living  cell  must  have  outside 
of  it  a  God,  and  inside  of  it  an  immaterial  principle, 
to  be  accounted  for  under  the  law  of  causation. 

Huxley,  more  cautious  than  Hackel,  says  that  life 
is  the  cause  of  organization,  and  not  organization  the 
cause  of  life..  He  has  printed  that  opinion  over  and 
over  (HuxLEY,  Introduction  to  the  Classification  of 
Animals),  and  never  taken  it  back.  Well,  if  life  is 
the  cause  of  organization,  probably  it  is  safe  to  say 
the  cause  must  exist  before  the  effect.  At  least,  that 
is  Nature's  logic.  But,  if  life  may  exist  before  organi- 
zation, why  not  after  it  ?  I  affirm  that  the  microscope 
begins  to  have  visions  of  man's  immortality.  [Applause.] 

Some  force  forms  the  parts  of  an  embryo. 

That  which  forms  the  parts  is  the  cause  of  the 
form  of  the  parts. 

The  cause  must  exist  before  the  effect. 

The  force  which  forms  the  parts  of  an  embryo,  or 
of  any  living  organism,  exists,  therefore,  before  the 
parts. 

Life  is  thus  the  cause  of  organization,  and  not  or- 
ganization the  cause  of  life. 

Life,  therefore,  exists  before  organization. 

If  it  exists  before,  it  may  after. 


THE  MICROSCOPE  AND  MATERIALISM.  91 

Summarizing,  then,  the  latest  science  analytically, 
we  see  in  living  matter,  — 

17.  That  the  bioplasts'  are  a  colorless,  viscid,  and 
apparently  structureless  substance,  and  the  same  in 
all  animals. 

18.  That   they  throw  off  the  formed  material,  so 
that  it  constitutes  nerve,  brain,  muscle,  artery,  vein, 
bone,  and  all  the  mechanism  of  the  organism. 

19.  That,  although  of  the  same  chemical  composi- 
tion in  the  eggs  of  the  different  animals,  they  weave 
tissues  such  as  to  produce  the  different  plans  of  these 
animals. 

20.  That  their  action  involves,  therefore,  both  the 
formation  of  tissues  and  their  growth  according  to 
the  needs  of  the  animal. 

'21.  That  it  involves  the  production  of  all  those 
structures,  which,  in  animal  and  vegetable  organisms, 
exhibit  an  adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 

22.  That  it  involves  the  co-ordination  of  tissues, 
secretions,  and  deposits  in  the  organism. 

23.  That  the  plan  of  the  whole  organism  is  neces- 
sarily taken  into  view  from  the  first  stroke  of  the 
shuttles  of  the  bioplasts  that  weave  it. 

Tennyson  sings  with  an  emphasis  of  far-reaching 
thought : — 

"  Flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 
I  pluck  you  out  of  the  crannies  ; 
Hold  you  here  in  my  hand, 
Little  flower,  root  and  all. 
And  if  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  roots  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is." 


92  BIOLOGY. 

So  we  may  say  in  the  light  of  established  science :  — 

Cells  in  the  crannied  flesh, 

I  pluck  you  out  of  your  crannies  ; 

Hold  you  here  in  my  hand, 

Little  cells,  throbs  and  all. 

And  if  I  could  understand 

What  you  are,  throbs  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 

I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is. 


V. 

I.OTZE,  BEALE,  AND  HUXLEY  ON  LIVING  TISSUES. 

THE    FIFTIETH    LECTURE    IN   THE    BOSTON    MONDAY 
LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IN   PARK- 
STREET   CHURCH   OCT.   30. 


"  THIS  seems  to  me  to  be  as  sure  a  teaching  of  science  as  the  law 
of  gravitation,  that  life  proceeds  from  life,  and  nothing  but  life."  — 
SIR  WILLIAM  THOMSON,  "  Inaugural  Address  before  the  British 
Association,"  Nature,  vol.  iv.  p.  269. 

"THE  scientific  mind  can  find  no  repose  in  the  mere  registration 
of  sequences  in  nature.  The  further  question  obtrudes  itself  with 
resistless  might,  Whence  came  the  sequences  ?  "  —  PROFESSOR  TYN- 
DALL  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  64. 


V. 


LOTZE,  BEALE,  AND   HUXLEY  ON  LIVING 
TISSUES. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

OUE,  people  are  about  entering  on  a  presidential 
election  in  presence  of  all  the  other  nations  who  are 
our  guests.  If  a  man's  head,  character,  and  career  are 
each  a  truncated  cone,  lacking  all  the  upper  zones, 
he  is  no  fit  centennial  candidate.  This  autumn's 
choice  may  be  a  rudder  of  the  cause  of  civil-ser- 
vice reform  in  many  a  century  to  come.  Both 
political  parties  assert  that  a  great  evil  exists  in 
the  management  of  our  party  political  patronage; 
and  both  call  loudly  for  reform.  Is  it  not  the 
duty  of  thoughtful  men  in  all  the  professions  to 
see  to  it  that  gilded  demagogism  does  not  teach 
the  people  a  lie  in  the  smooth  name  of  democ- 
racy? We  are  told  that  we  must  beware  of  an 
aristocracy  of  office-holders.  We  are  assured  that 
civil-service  reform,  such  as  both  parties  demand, 
may  end  in  the  creation  of  an  office-holding  class. 
Which  is  the  worse,  to  have  the  great  mass  of  the 
minor  offices  in  politics  the  gift  of  the  higher  offices, 

95 


96  BIOLOGY. 

the  upper  and  lower  playing  into  each  other's  hands, 
like  gift-enterprises  and  their  patrons,  or  to  have  the 
rule  established  which  Washington  and  Jefferson  and 
Adams  and  Madison  indorsed,  that  men  shall  neither 
be  appointed  nor  removed  on  the  principle  that  to 
political  victors  belong  all  political  spoils,  but  shall 
be  put  into  office  for  ability  and  availability,  and 
kept  there  for  good  behavior?  Let  us  take  patronage 
from  party,  and  give  it  to  the  people.  Vast  gift-enter- 
prises in  politics  are  the  subtlest  threat  in  the  American 
future.  They  call  for  attention  from  all  scholars, 
although,  perhaps,  not  for  much  discussion  in  the 
pulpit  as  yet.  Ministers  know  much  of  which  they 
do  not  speak  in  public.  But,  in  our  circles  of  influ- 
ence, it  is  assuredly  in  our  power  to  turn  public 
thought  upon  this  enormous  mischief  in  the  cur- 
rent political  life  of  a  yet  young  nation.  Our 
Woolseys,  our  Danas,  our  Tildens,  and  our  Hayeses 
are  united ;  and  shall  educated  men  of  all  classes  not 
unite  the  parlor,  the  platform,  and  the  pulpit  on  this 
now  strategic  theme  ?  On  civil-service  reform,  or 
any  other  great  cause,  give  me  a  union  of  the  parlor, 
the  pulpit,  and  the  platform,  and  I  will  insure  a  right 
attitude  of  the  press;  and  give  me  a  union  of  the 
parlor,  the  pulpit,  the  platform,  and  the  press,  and  a 
right  attitude  of  politics  and  of  the  police  will  follow. 
[Applause.] 

THE  LECTUEE. 

At  certain  seasons,  it  was  the  custom  of  the  Doges 
of  Venice  to  symbolize  the  marriage  of  their  city  to 
the  sea  by  casting  a  ring  into  the  waves.  Transfig- 


LIVING  TISSUES.  97 

tired  marble,  Venice  stood  at  the  head  of  the  Adriatic, 
and  made  the  howling,  waste,  immeasurable  brine 
her  servant.  But  her  conquest  was  one  of  love,  and 
of  the  natural  superiority  of  the  loftiest  spiritual 
purposes.  The  sea  murmured  through  her  streets: 
she  made  it  float  her  traffic.  The  Mediterranean 
flashed  far  and  wide ;  and  far  and  wide  Venice  made 
ifc  carry  her  thought,  her  enterprise,  her  beneficence. 
The  modern  Venice  is  religious  science  :  the  modern 
Mediterranean  is  physical  science.  Transfigured 
marble,  the  loftiest  spiritual  purposes  on  earth  — 
wherever  they  exist  —  are  the  city.  Far-flashing, 
immeasurable  sea,  a  waste  plain  unless  ridden  by 
fleets  of  holy  wills  and  beneficent  enterprises — this 
is  physical  science.  That  city  purposes  to  cover  that 
sea  with  such  fleets.  The  sea  and  the  city  rejoice 
equally  in  their  nuptials.  On  this  occasion  I  wish, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Doges  of  Venice,  to  .cast  into 
that  sea  as  a  marriage-symbol  the  ring  of  the  living 
cell. 

You  will  allow  me  to  be  elementary ;  for  we  can- 
not approach  the  mysteries  of  the  microscope  with 
clearness  of  thought,  without  attention  to  some  very 
humble  details. '  Let  me  ask  every  gentleman  here  to 
look  to-morrow  morning  at  the  unsharpened  edge  of 
his  razor  in  order  to  form  a  distinct  idea  of  what  the 
one-thousandth  part  of  an  inch  is.  I  suppose  a  thou- 
sand dull  razor-edges  put  side  by  side  might  make  an 
inch.  Now,  under  our  better  present  microscopes,  how 
much  breadth  may  such  a  razor's  edge  be  made  to  ap- 
pear to  have  ?  We  can  magnify  the  one-thousandth 


98  BIOLOGY. 

part  of  an  inch  to  the  breadth  of  three  fingers,  or, 
exactly  speaking,  to  the  length  of  that  line  [referring 
to  colored  diagrams  exhibited  on  the  platform]. 
The  one-thousandth  part  of  an  inch,  or  the  dull  edge 
of  your  razor  magnified  twenty-eight  hundred  times 
linear,  is  as  thick  as  your  three  fingers  (Beale's 
"  Microscope  ").  When  you  have  a  dot  only  the 
one  four-thousandth  part  of  an  inch  in  diameter, 
that  is,  a  dot  so  small  that  four  like  it  could  lie 
abreast  of  each  other  on  your  razor's  edge,  and  when 
you  magnify  that  dot  four  thousand  times,  it  is 
of  precisely  the  size  of  this  dot,  or  as  large  as  an 
English  shilling.  We  are  going  into  a  labyrinth,  my 
friends  ;  and  I  wish  you  to  know  what  opportunities 
for  exact  observation  the  latest  science  furnishes. 
You  will  hear  the  assertion,  that,  under  the  highest 
powers  of  the  microscope,  protoplasm  or  bioplasm  is 
apparently  structureless.  I  beg  you  to  look  at  your 
razor's  edge  in  order  that  when  you  examine  bio- 
plasm with  a  power  that  magnifies  twenty-eight  hun- 
dred times  in  a  linear  direction,  and  know  that  a 
line  the  thousandth  part  of  an  inch  thick,  under 
that  power  would  be  three  fingers  broad,  you  may 
be  tolerably  certain,  that,  if  there  is  any  structure  in 
the  bioplasm  that  carmine  can  stain,  you  will  see  it. 
If  you  are  told  that  this  transparent,  colorless,  and 
apparently  structureless  substance  is  molecular  ma- 
chinery, and  that  it  has  purely  physical  arrange- 
ments, which  not  only  weave  bone,  muscle,  artery, 
vein,  and  nerve,  but  can  co-ordinate  tissue  with 
tissue,  and  produce  wholly  by  machinery  a  plant  or 


LIVING  TISSUES.  99 

animal,  you  must  remember  that  under  your  micro- 
scope, which  gives  your  razor's  edge  the  breadth  of 
your  three  fingers,  all  bioplasm  appears  to  be  abso- 
lutely structureless. 

Ariadne,  you  know,  had  a  clew,  a  little  thread, 
which  she  received  from  Vulcan,  and  which  she  gave 
to  Theseus,  by  the  aid  of  which  he  safely  penetrated 
the  famous  labyrinth  of  Minotaurus.  Cultivated  men 
are  now  thoughtfully  walking  into  a  labyrinth  far 
more  complicated  than  that.  Philosophy,  not  for  the 
first  time,  but  with  better  weapons  than  ever  before, 
is  entering  the  border-land  between  the  physical  and 
the  spiritual,  a  labyrinth  on  the  border-ground  of 
the  two  kingdoms  of  mind  and  matter ;  a  border  on 
which  will  be  fought  the  Waterloos  of  philosophy  for 
an  hundred  years  to  come ;  a  border  which  will  be 
contested  as  the  Rhine  never  was ;  a  border  where 
soul  and  matter,  God  and  man,  meet;  a  border  where 
the  questions  of  immortality,  of  freedom  of  the  will, 
of  moral  responsibility,  and  even  of  the  Divine  Exist- 
ence itself,  will  be  discussed  by  the  iron  lips  of  the 
best  intellectual  artillery  on  the  globe.  Now  we 
have  in  this  labyrinth  an  Ariadne  clew,  and  what  is 
it?  Why,  simply  the  axiomatic  iruth,  that  every 
change  must  have  a  sufficient  cause.  Until  the  Seven 
Stars  set  in  the  East,  men  will  not  give  up  their 
belief,  that,  whenever  a  change  occurs,  there  must  be 
an  adequate  cause  for  it.  We  are  to  behold  changes 
occurring  in  matter,  that,  under  the  best  micro- 
scope, is  apparently  structureless.  We  are  to  behold 
harmoniously  concurrent  changes  occurring,  that 


100  BIOLOGY. 

when  taken  together  amount  to  the  building  up  of 
your  hand  and  nerves  and  veins,  and  heart  and  eai 
and  eye  and  braift ;  and  not  only  to  that,  but  to  the 
co-ordinating  and  adjusting  the  wants  of  each  one  of 
these  to  the  wants  of  each  of  the  others.  ExacTa 
ovfipaxoi  name,  as  the  Greeks  used  to  say  (all  the 
allies  of  each)  :  this  is  the  most  wonderful  fact  in  the 
arrangements  of  the  parts  of  any  living  organism. 
Not  only  the  formation  of  ^ach  part,  but  the  co-ordi- 
nation of  part  with  part  in  organic  structures,  is  to 
be  explained,  without  violence  to  self-evident  truth. 
We  stand  before  structureless  bioplasm,  and  see  it  weav- 
ing organisms ;  and  we  are  to  adhere,  in  spite  of  all 
theories,  to  the  Ariadne  clew,  that  every  cause  is  to  be 
interpreted  by  its  effects,  and  that  all  changes  must 
have  adequate  causes.  [Applause.] 

Before  I  come  to  the  discussion  of  the  process  of 
carmine  staining  of  living  tissues,  it  is  important  that 
I  should  sketch  briefly  the  history  of  the  cell-theory 
in  physiology. 

What  right  have  I  to  know  any  thing  about  phy- 
siological and  microscopical  research  ?  How  should 
a  minister,  who,  if  born  to  his  calling,  is,  as  many 
think,  neither  man  nor  woman,  but  something  be- 
tween the  one  and  the  other,  dare  to  know  any  thing 
about  the  microscope  ?  I  notice  that  the  New- York 
Nation — a  journal  which  I  respect  for  its  culture,  but 
which  occasionally  takes  a  merely  library  view  of  hu- 
man affairs  —  says  that  it  looked  over  the  catalogues 
of  our  theological  seminaries  lately,  and  did  not  find, 
forsooth,  that  any  thing  important  is  known  in  these 


LIVING  TISSUES.  101 

professional  schools  about  the  recent  progress  of  phi- 
losophy or  physiology.  [Applause.]  It  found  by  an 
attentive  examination  of  printed  documents,. —  about 
as  good  evidence  concerning  the  theological  instruc- 
tion in  our  seminaries  as  tombstones  in  cemeteries  are 
concerning  the  characters  of  those  who  lie  beneath 
them  [laughter], — it  discovered,  after  an  exhaustive 
and  astute  examination  of  catalogues,  .that  ministers 
have  no  acquaintance  whatever  with  philosophy  in 
its  latest  forms.  It  did  not  ascertain  that  at  Prince- 
ton Theological  Seminary  —  that  mossy,  mediaeval 
school  —  there  is  a  professorship  of  the  relations  be- 
tween religious  and  other  science.  At  Andover — a 
little  less  mossy,  possibly,  as  you  think,  but  yet  suffi- 
ciently mediaeval —  there  is  a  lectureship  on  that  sub- 
ject; and  at  some  near  date  there  may  be  established 
there  too,  God  willing,  a  professorship  on  that  very 
theme.  Unless  a  man  is  equipped  in  what  little  of 
logic  and  metaphysics  a  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  a 
John  Stuart  Mill  can  teach  him,  he  is  not  adequately 
prepared  for  the  Aristotelian  lecture-room  of  Profes- 
sor Park.  What  shall  we  say  of  the  thousand  sides 
of  the  culture  of  such  a  man  as  Schleiermacher,  or 
Julius  Miiller  ? 

Go  to  Germany ;  and  what  name  at  this  instant 
leads  the  philosophy  of  the  most  learned  land  on  the 
globe  ?  What  philosopher  is  read  with  the  most  en- 
thusiasm by  students  of  religious  and  philosophical 
science  in  Germany  and  England  and  Scotland  ? 
Hermann  Lotze.  Who  is  he  ?  I  am  acutely  sorry 
that  you  have  heard  of  Herbert  Spencer,  whose  star 


102  BIOLOGY. 

touches  the  Western  pines,  and  know  nothing  of 
Hermann  Lotze,  whose  star  is  in  the  ascendant.  The 
most  renowned  of  the  modern  German  philosophers, 
he  is  a  great  physiologist,  as  well  as  a  great  meta- 
physician (see  art.  on  "  Hermann  Lotze  "  in  Mind, 
July  number,  1876).  He  is  the  one  that  is  teaching 
all  Germany  —  he  taught  me,  among  others  —  to  look 
at  this  border-land  with  all  the.  reverence  with  which 
we  bow  down  before  Almighty  God.  Who  is  Her- 
mann Lotze  ?  A  man  recognized  everywhere  as 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  physiology,  as  Herbert 
Spencer  is  not,  especially  with  the  latest  research. 
A  scholar  enriched  by  the  massive  spoils  of  all  the 
German  metaphysical  systems,  and  made  opulent  by 
all  physiological  knowledge,  and  building  up  with 
these  two  sides  the  colossal  arch  of  a  new  system, 
with  many  a  Christian  truth  at  its  summit.  Although 
Hermann  Lotze,  as  professor  in  the  philosophical  fac- 
ulty at  Gottingen,  and  one  of  the  higher  advisers 
of  the  court  of  Hanover,  does  not  put  himself  for- 
ward as  an  apologist  for  any  one  particular  school 
of  religious  opinion,  he  is  everj^where  regarded  as  a 
supporter  of  that  form  of  Christian  philosophy  which 
is  now  absorbing  all  established  science.  He  is  a 
theist  of  the  most  pronounced  kind.  As  to  evolu- 
tion, his  positions  are  nearly  those  of  Dana.  He  is 
full  of  scorn  for  the  idea  that  the  Power  that  put 
into  us  personality  does  not  itself  possess  personality. 
Carlyle,  toward  the  end  of  his  famous  history  of 
Frederic  the  Great,  says  there  was  one  form  of 
scepticism  which  the  all-doubting  Frederic  could  not 


LIVING  TISSUES.  103 

endure.  "  Atheism,  truly,  he  never  could  abide:  to 
him,  as  to  all  of  us,"  says  Carlyle,  "  it  was  flatly 
inconceivable  that  intellect,  moral  emotion,  could 
have  been  put  into  him  by  an  Entity  that  had  none 
of  its  own  "  (CARLYLE,  Frederic  the  Great,  book  23, 
chap.  14).  This  inconceivability  is  the  central  prop- 
osition of  Hermann  Lotze's  philosophy,  the  most  bril- 
liant, the  most  audacious,  the  most  abreast  of  the 
time,  of  all  the  philosophies  of  the  globe.  You  say  I 
am  a  re-actionary  evangelical,  and  that  I  stand  here 
endeavoring  to  hold  back  the  wheels  of  progress.  I 
find  that  I  have  been  publicly  compared  in  grave 
print  to  one  of  the  persecutors  of  Galileo  ;  not  in  so 
many  words,  but  in  thought.  The  truth  is,  that,  in- 
stead of  being  re-actionary,  this  Boston  Lectureship 
is  abreast  of  the  latest  German  investigation.  I  am 
proud  to  say  that  I  have  some  acquaintance  with 
Hermann  Lotze,  and  that  I  regard  him  as  the  rising, 
as  Germany  regards  Herbert  Spencer  as  the  setting, 
star  in  philosophy.  [Applause.] 

Now,  gentlemen,  to  be  brief,  the  cell-theory  and 
its  history  may  be  summarized  in  twelve  proposi- 
tions : 

1.  In  1838  the  microscope   was   sufficiently  per- 
fected to  furnish  a  solid  basis  for  the  observation  of 
facts. 

2.  Schleiden  founded  the  cell-theory,  but  restricted 
it  to  plants.     With  him  the  cell  consisted  of  a  vesicle 
and  semi-fluid  contents. 

3.  Schwann  added  to  Schleiden's  two  elements  a 
third,  —  the  nucleus. 


104  BIOLOGY. 

Why  am  I  running  over  this  history  ?  Sir  William 
Hamilton  never  would  discuss  any  great  theme  with- 
out looking  back  across  the  record  of  its  discussion 
in  order  to  obtain  the  trend  of  opinion  through  a 
long  range.  Without  historical  retrospect,  we  are 
easily  deceived  by  temporary  swirls  of  opinion.  We 
have  yet  another  clew  besides  the  one  of  cause  and 
effect :  it  is  the  unanimity  of  experts.  A  fair  state 
ment  of  the  history  of  the  cell-theory  will  show 
that  the  points  that  are  central  in  the  modern  form 
of  that  theory  were  established  thirty-five  years  ago, 
and  that  there  has  been  unanimity  of  conclusion  as 
to  all  the  more  essential  facts. 

(1.)  "  This  semi-fluid  substance,"  says  Schwann, 
"  possesses  a  capacity  to  occasion  the  production  of 
cells." 

(2.)  "  When  this  takes  place,  the  nucleus  usually 
appears  to  be  formed  first,  and  then  the  cells  around 
it." 

You  will  -not  fail  to  remember  the  distinction  be- 
tween living  matter  and  formed  matter,  and  that 
nutrient  matter  is  transmuted  by  the  bioplast  into 
living  matter,  and  then  thrown  off  as  formed  mate- 
rial. But  in  the  cell  are  nuclei  and  nucleoli ;  and  the 
question  of  questions  in  the  central  part  of  the  cell- 
theory  is,  whether  the  bioplasm  existed  before  the 
nucleus,  or  the  nucleus  before  the  bioplasm. 

Schwann  gave  as  his  opinion  on  that  point  thirty 
years  ago,  that  the  nucleus  appears  to  be  formed  by 
the  semi-fluid  substance  in  the  cell. 

(3.)  "  The  cell,  when  once  formed,  continues  to  grow 


LIVING  TISSUES.  105 

ly  its  own  individual  powers,  but  is  at  the  same  time 
directed  by  the  influence  of  the  entire  organism  in  such 
a  manner  as  the  design  of  the  whole  requires.  This  is 
the  fundamental  phenomenon  of  all  animal  and  vegeta* 
lie  "life:' 

These  words  of  Schwann  are  more  than  thirty-five 
years  old,  and  express  the  central  truth  of  the  bio- 
plasmic  theory  of  to-day. 

(4.)  "  The  generation  of  the  cells  takes  place  ill 
a  fluid,  or  structureless  substance,  which  we  may 
call  cell-germinating  material  ("  Zellenkeimstoff," 
SCHWANN,  Reports  of  the  Sydenham  Society,  1847, 
p.  39). 

So  much  for  the  cellular  theory  up  to  1840. 

4.  In  1841  Dr.  Henle  adopted  the  cell-theory  of 
Schleiden  and  Schwann,  but  pointed  out  the  multi- 
plication of  cells  by  division  and  budding. 

5.  In  the  same  year  Dr.  Martin  Barry  showed  the 
reproduction    of    cells    by   division    of    the    parent 
nucleus. 

6.  In  1842  and  1846  J.  Goodsir  confirmed  Barry's 
proposition,   and    maintained    that    "  the    secretion 
within   a  primitive  cell  is  always  situated  between 
the  nucleus  and  the  cell-wall,  and  would  appear  to 
be  a  product  of  the  nucleus  ("Anatom.  Memoirs," 
vol.  ii.,  Trans,  of  the  Royal  Soc.-  of  Edinburgh,  1845, 
p.  417). 

7.  In  1845  Nageli  showed  the  comparative  unim- 
portance of  the  cell-wall. 

8.  In  1851  Alexander  Brown  proved  that  the  cell 
wall  is  non-essential. 


106  BIOLOGY. 

9.  In  1857  Leydig  first  decidedly  declared  as  estab- 
lished science  that  the  cell-wall  is  non-essential. 

10.  In  1861  Max  Schultze  observed  that  many  of 
the  most  important  kind  of  cells  are  destitute  of  a 
cell-membrane.      He  defined  the   cell   as   "  a   little 
mass  of  protoplasm  inside  of  which  lies  a  nucleus. 
The  nucleus  as  well  as  the  protoplasm  are  products 
by  partition  of  similar  components  of  another  cell." 
In  1854  Max  Schultze  had  described  certain  non- 
nucleated  cells,  and  doubts  were  thrown  on  the  uni- 
versality of  the  nucleus. 

11.  In  1856  Lord  S.  G.  Osborne  discovered  the 
process  of   the  carmine  staining   of   vegetable    and 
animal  tissues. 

12.  By  aid  of  this  process  Professor  Lionel  Beale, 
between  1856  and  1866,  so  far  advanced  the  knowl- 
edge of  living  tissues,  that  now  his  bioplasmic  theory 
at  once  supplements  and  supersedes  the  cellular  the- 
ory (TYSON,  JAMES,  The  Cell  Doctrine;  DRYSDALE, 
DR.   JOHN,  Protoplasmic    Theory   of  Life :  London, 
1874,  pp.  12-108). 

Are  you  shy  of  accepting  the  assertion  that  the 
cellular  theory,  of  which  you  have  heard  so  much, 
has  been  superseded  by  the  protoplasmic  or  bioplas- 
mic theory?  Here  is  Hackel  himself,  who  says, 
"  The  protoplasm  or  sarcode  theory  —  that  is,  that 
this  albuminous  material  is  the  original  active  sub- 
stratum of  all  vital  phenomena — may  perhaps  be 
considered  one  of  the  greatest  achievements  of  mod- 
ern biology,  and  one  of  the  richest  in  results " 
(HACKEL,  Quar.  Mic.  Jour.,  1869,  p.  223). 


LIVING  TISSUES.  107 

While  we  abandon  to-day  the  cell-theory  in  its  old 
form,  we  retain  it  in  the  new  form,  if  we  please  to 
put  into  the  doctrine  of  the  cell  the  idea  that  the 
cell-wall  is  not  essential,  but  that  what  is  essential 
is  the  central  viscid,  transparent  bioplasm,  or  living, 
germinal  matter. 

Gentlemen,  I  am  not  a  bold  man,  and  therefore  I 
have  adopted  as  an  inflexible  rule,  not  to  trust  any 
man's  authority  as  to  facts  in  science  without  advice  to 
do  so  from  his  determined  opponents.  It  would  have 
been  enough  for  me  to  have  had,  as  I  did  have,  the 
authority  of  James  Dana  for  trust  in  Professor  Lionel 
Beale's  statements  of  facts  concerning  living  tissues. 
One  of  the  most  distinguished  theological  scholars  in 
this  country,  whom,  out  of  reverence,  I  will  not  name, 
was  afflicted  nervously,  and  threatened  with  loss  of 
sight.  Physicians  in  this  learned  city,  and  in  Paris, 
again  and  again  prescribed  for  him,  but  fruitlessly. 
Dr.  Lionel  Beale  in  London  was  recommended  to 
him ;  and  one  hour  of  examination  of  the  case  was 
followed  by  a  single  prescription,  which  was  effectual, 
and  has  been  so  year  after  year  through  a  quarter  of 
a  century.  [Applause.]  In  one  of  my  groves  near 
Lake  George  there  is  a  beech  which  I  call  "  The 
Bioplast  Beech,"  so  delicious  were x  the  hours  I  spent 
there  this  summer  with  Hermann  Lotze  and  Beale 
and  Dr.  Carpenter  and  Dana  and  Darwin,  and  a  score 
of  other  books  of  science.  m  Beale's  celebrated  Lec- 
tures before  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  in  1861, 
on  living  tissues,  and  his  discoveries  concerning  bio- 
plasm, were  preceded  by  a  work  on  "  The  Micro 


108  BIOLOGY. 

scope,"  which  you  had  better  not  buy  yet,  simply 
because  it  is  going  into  a  fifth  edition.  It  is  a  bulky, 
elaborate  book,  full  of  plates;  and  I  have  seen  it 
worn  ragged  in  my  library,  as  I  call  the  Athenaeum 
yonder,  with  its  one  hundred  thousand  volumes,  ifcs 
one  hundred  magazines,  and  one  hundred  newspapers 
and  excellent  professional  collections.  It  is  a  signifi- 
cant sign  when  a  book  of  science  is  worn  ragged  in 
a  library  used  by  the  Sumners  and  Wilsons  and 
Emersons,  and  other  men  who  are  not  likely  to 
waste  time  on  rubbish. 

Beale's  volumes  I  find  worn  eloquently  black,  and 
Bastian's  hardly  stained.  Some  small  philosopher 
may  tell  you  that  Beale  is  no  authority,  and  that 
many  of  his  propositions  are  in  dispute.  One  of 
them  is ;  but  it  is  a  proposition  that  I  am  not  using 
at  all,  namely,  that  the  nerves  end  in  loops.  Even 
on  that  obscure  point,  opinion  is  turning  more  and 
more  to  Beale's  side.  But  when  a  costly  work  on 
the  microscope,  with  elaborate  plates  filled  with  the 
results  of  original  research  upon  living  tissues,  goes 
in  a  few  years  into  a  fifth  edition,  and  its  author  is 
commonly  pronounced  to  be  the  first  microscopist  of 
the  English-speaking  world,  and  when  his  facts  agree 
with  those  of  Frey,  the  greatest  authority  on  the  same 
subject  in  the  German-speaking  world,  even  a  timid 
man  may  read  such  a  book  without  any  great  tremor. 
In  examining  authorities  in  science,  I  seek  first  to 
ascertain  on  what  points  there  is  an  agreement  of  the 
best  English  and  the  best  German  publications ;  but 
that  is  not  enough.  We  must  have  the  authority  of 
his  rivals  for  trusting  any  man  as  an  expert. 


LIVING  TISSUES.  109 

What  do  the  opponents  of  Beale's  conclusions  say 
of  his  facts  ? 

1.  Dr.  John  Drysdale  of  Edinburgh  is  the  author 
of  a  work  on  "  The  Protoplasmic  Theory  of  Life ;  " 
and  in  1874  was  president  of  the  Liverpool  Micro- 
scopical Society.  He  has  given  head  and  heart  to 
the  doctrine  that  bioplasm  is  a  form  of  matter  sui 
generis  ;  and  that  its  activity  is  an  outcome  of  trans- 
muted physical  force,  or  the  result  ef  "irritability 
under  stimulation." 

He  opposes  vehemently  Beale's  conclusion  that  the 
actions  of  bioplasm  require  to  account  for  them  a 
higher  than  physical  force.  But  of  Beale  he  sayy, 
"  A  master-mind  appeared  in  1860,  we  are  glad  to 
say,  in  the  person  of  our  countryman,  Dr.  Lionel 
Beale  of  London.  He  had  for  years  devoted  himself 
with  unwearied  zeal  to  microscopial  research  on  the 
animal  tissues,  using  the  highest  magnifying  powers 
as-  soon  as  available,  and  had  attained  to  an  almost 
unrivalled  skill,  and  had  discovered  various  new 
methods  of  the  preparing  objects,  which  enabled  him 
to  analyze  the  structures  of  the  textures  to  a  point 
not  hitherto  reached  by  anatomists.  In  1860  he 
wrote  those  '  Lectures  on  the  Structure  of  the  Sim- 
ple Tissues  of  the  Human  Body,'  which  were  de- 
livered before  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  in 
1861,  and  which  are  destined,  I  believe,  to  make  an 
epoch  in  the  progress  of  physiological  science.  Since 
then,  Dr.  'Beale  has  gone  on  completing  and  expand- 
ing his  system,  and  filling  up  the  details,  and  has  car- 
ried i£  ou  t  in  pathology  to  an  extent  of  completeness 


110  BIOLOGY. 

and  consistency  marvellous  for  the  short  time  as  yet 
given,  and  as  being  the  work  of  one  man ;  a  fact 
which  in  itself  shows  he  has  seized  011  one  great  and 
central  principle,  which  enables  him  to  bring  into 
practical  harmony  a  vast  number  of  scattered  obser- 
vations both  of  his  own  and  of  others.  Beale's  proto- 
plasmic theory  now  takes  the  place  of  the  cell-theory. 
General  opinion  is  now  in  accord  as  respects  the  facts 
with  Dr.  Beale's  statements  on  the  nucleus  in  1860  " 
(DBYSDALE,  DR.  JOHN,  Prot.  Theor.  of  Life :  London, 
1874.  Pp.  41,  68,  103). 

2.  Professor  Alexander  Bain  makes  Beale's  facts 
the  basis  of  the  central  chapter  in  his  work  on  "  Mind 
and  Body,"  —  one  of  those  tempting  but  disappoint- 
ing royal  roads  to  knowledge  called  "  The  Interna- 
tional Scientific  Series."  Bain,  as  you  know,  teaches 
that  only  matter  exists  in  the  universe,  but  that 
matter  rightly  defined  is  "  a  double-faced  somewhat, 
having  a  spiritual  and  a  physical  side."  That  is 
the  nearest  approach  to  a  definition  that  either  he 
or  Tyndall  has  given.  In  this  marvellous  compound 
unit  there  coinhere  in  one  substratum  extension  and 
the  absence  of  extension,  form  and  the  absence  of 
form,  activity  and  the  absence  of  activity,  —  all  the 
perfectly  contradictory  attributes  of  matter  and  mind. 
.1  suppose  that  it  may  be  asserted  that  mind  is  co- 
extensive with  matter ;  but  never,  until  we  can  believe 
that  a  thing  can  be  and  not  be  at  the  same  time  and 
in  the  same  sense,  will  men  who  love  clear  ideas 
adopt  Tyndall's  and  Bain's  self-contradictory  defi- 
nition of  matter.  But  even  Bain  leans  confidently 


LIVING  TISSUES.  Ill 

on  Beale  whenever  he  speaks  of  microscopical  phy- 
siology. 

In  arguments  before  juries,  Webster  often  asked 
his  opponents,  "Why  do  you  not  meet  the  case?" 
Remember  that  famous  phrase  of  his,  if  you  hear  the 
materialistic  theory  of  evolution  defended.  What  is 
the  case  against  that  theory  ?  It  consists  of  the 
irreconcilable  opposition  of  the  attributes  of  matter 
and  mind,  of  the  unfathomed  gulf  between  the  not- 
living  and  the  living,  of  the  fact  that  spontaneous 
generation  has  never  been  shown  to  be  a  possibility, 
and  of  the  missing  links  between  men  and  apes.  Let 
these  points  be  met  fairly,  and  the  case  is  met.  Not 
until  the  chasm  between  the  not-living  and  the  liv- 
ing is  filled  up  by  observation,  not  until  that  distant 
time  when  you  shall  have  found  some  merely  physical 
link  between  the  inorganic  and  organic,  can  you  say 
that  the  theory  of  evolution  has  been  proven  by  induc- 
tion. A  theory  of  evolution  has  been  proved,  but  not 
the  theory.  The  public  mind  is  immensely  confused 
by  this  one  word  of  many  meanings.  A.  theory  of  evo- 
lution Dana  holds,  but  not  the  theory.  The  position 
of  this  Lectureship  is,  that  there  is  a  use  and  an 
abuse  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  and  that  Hiickel 
illustrates  the  abuse,  and  Dana  the  use.  I  hold 
a  theory  of  evolution,  but  not  the  theory.  What  do 
I  mean  by  the  theory  of  evolution  ?  Precisely  what 
Huxley  means  when  he  says  in  so  many  words 
(Encyc.  Brit.,  ninth  ed.  art.  "  Biology  "),  that  "  if  the 
theory  of  evolution  is  true,  the  living  must  have 
arisen  from  the  not-living." 


112  BIOLOGY. 

3.  You  want  Huxley  himself  in  support  of  Beale, 
and  you  shall  have  him.  The  most  important  propo- 
sitions that  I  shall  present  to  you  on  this  occasion  I 
hold  here  in  my  hands ;  and  they  are  all  in  the  lan- 
guage, though  not  in  the  order  of  statement,  wfiich 
Professor  Huxley  uses.  I  do  not  know  any  late  lead- 
ing work  in  Germany  on  microscopical  physiology  that 
does  not  mention  Beale  again  and  again.  When  I 
was  in  Jena,  I  bought  Ranke's  great  work  on  physi- 
ology, in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  was  a  minister  who 
had  no  right  to  know  any  thing  on*  this  subject.  I 
brought  it  with  me  across  the  Atlantic;  and,  on 
opening  it  the  other  day,  I  found  Beale  cited,  and  his 
propositions  put  into  the  foreground  of  the  latest  Ger- 
man statements  of  the  cell-theory.  You  know  that, 
Schleiden  and  S.chwann  being  Germans,  the  German 
physiologists,  from  patriotic  and  various  other  mo- 
tives, cling  to  the  nomenclature  of  these  great  men ; 
but  they  honor  Beale.  When  I  turn  to  Huxley,  how- 
ever, in  his  article  on  biology,  in  the  latest  edition 
of  the  twenty-one  volumes  of  "  The  Encyclopedia 
Britannica,"  I  am  able  to  select  from  various  parts 
of  his  discussion  these  seventeen  propositions,  every 
one  of  which  was  first  made  sure  by  the  microscopic 
research  of  Lionel  Beale ;  but  Beale  is  not  once  men- 
tioned in  this  article  by  Huxley. 

1.  "It  is  certain  that  in  the  animal,  as  in  the  plant, 
neither  cell-wall  nor  nucleus  are  essential  elements  of 
the  cell." 

That  conclusion  is  the  result  of  a  Waterloo  battle, 
if  you  please.  Although  the  proposition  is  so  quietly 


LIVING  TISSUES.  113 

stated,  Huxley  knows  what  proof  there  is  behind  it, 
and  lays  it  down  before  the  world  in  this,  his  most 
scholarly  production  on  biology,  and  his  latest,  as 
established  science. 

2.  "  Bodies  which  are  unquestionably  the  equiva- 
lents of  cells  —  true  morphological  units  —  are  some- 
times mere  masses  of  protoplasm,  devoid  alike  of  cell, 
wall,  and  nucleus." 

3.  "  For  the  whole  living  world,  then,  it  results 
that  the  morphological  unit,  the  primary  and  funda- 
mental form  of  life,  is  merely  an  individual  mass  of 
protoplasm." 

4.  "  In  this  no  further  structure  is  discernible." 

I  beg  you  to  notice  the  accord  of  all  these  proposi- 
tions with  those  which,  in  the  last  lecture,  I  put 
before  you  as  the  result  of  Lionel  Beale's  investiga- 
tion. 

5.  "  The  nucleus,  the  primordial  utricle,  the  cen- 
tral fluid,  and  the  cell-wall,  are  no  essential  constitu- 
ents of  the  morphological  unit,  but  represent  results 
of  its  metamorphosis." 

We  saw  how  bioplasm  throws  off  formed  material, 
and  how  the  nucleus  is  the  result  of  the  action  of  the 
bioplasm,  and  not  bioplasm  the  result  of  the  nucleus ; 
and  here  you  find  Professor  Huxley  asserting  that  the 
nucleus  is  a  result  of  the  metamorphosis  of  bioplasm. 

6.  "  Though  the  nucleus  is  very  constant  among 
animal  cells,  it  is  not  universally  present." 

7.  "  The  nucleus  rarely  undergoes  any  considera- 
able  modification." 

8.  '*  The  structures  characteristic  of  the  tissues  are 


114  BIOLOGY. 

formed  at  the  expense  of  the  more  superficial  proto- 
plasm of  the  cells." 

The  structures  characteristic  of  the  tissues !  What 
a  smooth  phrase  that  is,  for  the  infinity  of  design  in 
the  human  constitution,  bone,  nerve,  artery,  muscle, 
and  all  that  makes  a  plant  a  plant,  or  an  animal  an 
animal ! 

9.  "  When  nucleated  cells  divide,  the  division  of 
the  nucleus,  as  a  rule,  precedes  that  of  the  whole 
cell." 

10.  "  Independent  living  forms  may  present  but 
little   advance   from   an  individual  mass   of  proto- 
plasm." 

11.  "  All  the  higher  forms  of  life  are  aggregates 
of  such  morphological  units  or  cells,  variously  modi- 
fied" (HUXLEY,  PROFESSOR  T.  H.,  Encyc.  Brit.,  ninth 
edition,  Biology,  pp.  681,  682). 

12.  "  The  protoplasm  of  the  germ  may  not  under- 
go division  and  conversion  into  a  cell  aggregate ;  but 
various  parts  of  its  outer  and  inner  substance  may  be 
metamorphosed  directly  into    those    physically  and 
chemically  different  materials  which  constitute  the 
body  of  the  adult." 

13.  "  The  germ  may  undergo  division,  and  be  con- 
verted into  an  aggregate  of  cells,  which  give  rise  to 
the  tissues  by  undergoing  a  metamorphosis  of  the 
same  kind  as  that  to  which  the  whole  body  is  sub- 
jected in  the  preceding  case  "  (Ibid.,  p.  682). 

14.  "  Sustentative,  generative,  and  correlative  func- 
tions in  the  lower  forms  of  life  are  exerted  indiffer- 
ently, or  nearly  so,  by  all  parts  of  the  protoplasmic 
body." 


LIVING  TISSUES.  115 

15.  "  The  like  is  true  of  the  functions  of  the  body 
of  even  the  highest  organisms,  so  long  as  they  are  in 
the  condition  of  the  nucleated  cell "  (Ibid.,  685). 

16.  "  Generation  by  fission  and  gemmation  are  not 
confined  to  the  simplest  forms  of  life.     Both  modes 
are    common,  not   only   among    plants,  but   among 
animals  of  considerable  complexity." 

"  Throughout  almost  the  whole  series  of  living  beings, 
we  find  agamo  genesis,  or  not-sexual  generation" 
Eggs,  in  the  case  of  drones  among  bees,  develop 
without  impregnation"  (Ibid.,  686,  687). 

[After  a  pause,  Mr.  Cook  proceeded  in  a  lower 
voice] ,  — 

When  the  topic  of  the  origin  of  the  life  of  our 
Lord  on  the  earth  is  approached  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  microscope,  some  men,  who  know  not 
what  the  Holy  of  holies  in  physical  and  religious 
science  is,  say  that  we  have  no  example  of  the  origin 
of  life  without  two  parents.  There  are  numberless 
such  examples.  "  When  Castellet,"  says  Alfred  Rus- 
sel  Wallace,  Darwin's  coadjutor,  "  informed  Reaumur 
that  he  had  reared  perfect  silk-worms  from  the  eggs 
laid  by  a  virgin  moth,  the  answer  was,  '  Ex  nihilo 
nihil  fit,'  and  the  fact  was  disbelieved.  It  was  con- 
trary to  one  of  the  widest  and  best-established  laws 
of  Nature  ;  yet  it  is  now  universally  admitted  to  be 
true,  and  the  supposed  law  ceases  to  be  universal " 
(WALLACE,  ALFRED  RUSSEL^  Miracles  and  Modern 
Spiritualism,  p.  38  :  London,  1875). 

"Among  our  common  honey-bees,"  says  Hacke] 
(History  of  Creation,  vol.  i.  p.  197),  "  a  male  indi 


116  BIOLOGY. 

vidual,  a  drone,  arises  out  of  the  eggs  of  the  queen, 
if  the  egg  has  not  been  fructified ;  a  female,  a  queen, 
or  working-bee,  if  the  egg  has  been  fructified." 

Take  up  your  Mivart,  your  Lyell,  your  Owen,  and 
you  will  read  this  same  important  fact  which  Huxley 
here  asserts,  when  he  says  that  the  law  that  perfect 
individuals  may  be  virginally  born  extends  to  the 
higher  forms  of  life.  I  am  in  the  presence  of 
Almighty  God;  and  yet  —  when  a  great  soul  like 
the  tender  spirit  of  our  sainted  Lincoln,  in  his  early 
days,  with  little  knowledge,  but  with  great  thought- 
fulness,  was  troubled  by  this  difficulty,  and  almost 
thrown  into  infidelity  by  not  knowing  that  the  law 
that  there  must  be  two  parents  is  not  universal  —  I 
am  willing  to  allude,  even  in  such  a  presence  as  this, 
to  the  latest  science  concerning 'miraculous  concep- 
tion. [Sensation.] 

17.  "  The  phenomena  which  living  things  present 
have  no  parallel  in  the  mineral  world  "  (Ibid.,  p.  684). 

What  now,  gentlemen,  is  the  conclusion  of  Hux- 
ley from  all  these  propositions  that  seem  to  point  one 
way?  You  notice  that  his  facts  are  Beale's.  You 
find  an  explicit  agreement  here  of  Beale,  of  Huxley, 
of  Bain,  of  Drysdale,  of  Ranke,  and  I  might  say 
of  Carpenter,  of  Dalton,  and  of  scores  of  recent 
specialists.  The  facts  being  established,  the  supreme 
question  as  to  their  interpretation  is,  —  Life  or 
mechanism,  which  f 

Beale  says  life  :  Beale  says  a  principle  that  cannot 
be  explained  by  any  form  of  merely  physical  force. 
But  Huxley  says,  and  be  amazed  all  men  who  hold 


LIVING  TISSUES.  117 

the  Ariadne  clew,  "  A  mass  of  living  protoplasm  is 
simply  a  molecular  machine  of  great  complexity,  the 
total  results  of  the  working  of  which,  or  its  vital 
phenomena,  depend,  on  the  one  hand,  on  its  con- 
struction, and,  on  the  other,  upon  the  energy  sup- 
plied to  it :  and  to  speak  of  '  vitality '  as  any  thing 
but  the  name  of  a  series  of  operations  is  as  if  one 
should  talk  of  the  horologity  of  a  clock."  [Sensa- 
tion.] You  are  shocked  at  this  proposition,  and 
therefore  I  have  not  spoken  in  vain.  We  will  con- 
sider next  week  this  astounding  non  sequitur.  If 
Hermann  Lotze,  the  first  philosopher  of  Germany, 
were  on  this  platform  to-day,  he,  in  the  name  of  the 
axiom  that  every  change  must  have  a  sufficient  cause, 
would  thus  and  thus  [tearing  the  paper]  tear  into 
shreds  the  materialistic  or  mechanical  theory  of  the 
origin  of  living  tissues  and  of  the  soul.  [Applause.] 


VI. 

LIFE,  OR  MECHANISM,— WHICH? 

THE    FIFTY-FIRST   LECTURE   IN   THE   BOSTON   MONDAY 
LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED   IN    THE    PARK- 
STREET   CHURCH   NOV.   6. 


"  Tu  cuncta  superno 

Ducis  ab  exemplo,  pulchrum  pulcherimus  ipse 
Mundum  mente  gerens,  similique  imagine  formans." 

BOETHIUS,  De  ConsoL,  9. 

*'  WHAT  time  this  world's  great  workmaister  did  cast 
To  make  all  things  such  as  we  now  behold, 
It  seems  that  He  before  His  eyes  had  plast 
A  goodly  patterne,  to  whose  perfect  mould 
He  fashioned  them  as  comely  as  He  could, 
That  now  so  fair  and  seemly  they  appear; 
As  naught  may  be  amended  anywhere. 

That  wondrous  patterne,  wheresoeer  it  be, 
"Whether  in  Earth,  laid  up  in  secret  store, 
Or  else  in  Heaven,  that  no  man  may  it  see 
With  sinful  eyes,  for  fear  it  to  deflore, 
Is  perfect  beauty."  —  SPENSER. 


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VI. 
LIFE,  OR  MECHANISM  —  WHICH? 

ONE  day  the  poet  Goethe,  when  in  his  advanced 
age,  was  riding  home  to  Weimar  with  his  friend  Eck- 
ermann,  and  conversing  on  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  They  turned  by  Tiefurt  into  the  Weimar  road, 
and  stopped  at  a  spot,  where,  like  other  travellers,  I 
have  often  meditated  on  Goethe's  career ;  and  they 
had  from  that  outlook  a  majestic  view  of  the  setting 
sun.  The  great  poet  and  philosopher  remained  for 
many  minutes  in  perfect  silence,  and  at  last  said 
with  mystic  but  tremorless  emphasis,  "Untergehend 
sogar  ist's  immer  dieselbige  Sonne.  Setting,  neverthe- 
less the  sun  is  always  the  same  sun.  I  am  fully 
convinced  that  our  spirit  is  a  being  of  a  nature  quite 
indestructible,  and  that  its  activity  continues  from 
eternity  to  eternity."  This  man  knew  all  philoso- 
phies and  all  art  —  materialism,  realism,  pantheism, 
the  wildest  scepticism,  and,  I  fear,  not  a  little  of  the 
most  infamous  sensualism ;  but  his  was  at  least  a  free 
mind  and  a  modern  one.  Here,  however,  was  his 
conclusion  concerning  the  possibility  of  the  exist- 
ence of  the  soul  in  separation  from  the  body :  Set- 
ting, nevertheless  the  soul  is  always  the  same  soul. 

121 


122  BIOLOGY. 

(GOETHE,  Conversations  with  Eckermann,  Trans,  by  J. 
Oxenford,  Bohn's  ed.,  p.  84.)  Will  you  enter  to- 
day, my  friends,  into  Goethe's  brain  at  that  instant, 
and  remain  there  during  this  discussion,  lynx-eyed, 
I  care  not  how  thoroughly  so,  but  earnest?  It  is 
incontrovertible  that  we,  too,  a  little  while  ago, 
were  not  in  the  world,  and  that  we,  too,  a  little  while 
hence,  shall  be  here  no  longer.  The  sun  hastes  to 
the  west  as  fast  at  noon  as  in  the  last  moment  before 
sunset. 

New  lands  in  our  age  can  be  discovered  only  in 
old  lands.  Schliemann,  on  the  Plain  of  Troy,  has 
shown  us  a  city  of  great  antiquity  ;  and  he  has  done 
so  by  studying  an  old  land  beneath  its  soil.  We 
are  reaching  the  bottom  of  the  Roman  forum ;  we 
understand,  as  never -before,  the  environment  of  the 
Acropolis,  because  we  are  looking  with  the  spade 
for  new  lands  in  the  old  lands.  If  a  new  continent 
has  been  discovered  anywhere  in  the  last  twenty-five 
years,  it  has  been  in  the  ancient  continent  of  living 
tissues.  We  are  to  enter  on  that  strange  country; 
we  draw  near  to  it  across  turbulent  seas  ;  and  I  think, 
that,  as  the  Santa  Maria  ploughs  tossing  across  the 
waves  toward  the  West,  we  already  begin  to  see 
carved  wood  occasionally,  symbol  of  life  behind  the 
watery  horizon.  Already,  as  we  approach  this  new 
continent,  do  we  not  find  now  .and  then  a  poor 
floating  spray  of  red  berries  ?  Are  these  little  birds 
not  of  a  kind  always  cradled  on  the  land  ?  Are  not 
the  shapes  of  the  very  clouds,  as  the  sun  goes  down, 
some  indication  that  we  shall  at  last  reach  the  firm, 


LIFE,  OR  MECHANISM  —  WHICH?  123 

happy  shore  ?  Is  there  not  breathed  upon  us  out  of 
the  undescried  but  nearing  coast  an  odor  as  of  spices 
and  balm,  »and  frankincense  and  myrrh,  and  dates 
and  palms  —  a  fragrant  atmosphere  that  comes  in 
the  twilight  wind  off  the  continent  of  an  unseen 
Holy?  WB  have  not  landed  on  the  new  coast  yet ; 
but  they  who  walk  late  on  the  deck  of  the  Santa 
Maria  have  seen  a  light  rise  and  fall  ahead  of  us. 
We  are  to  look  to-day  at  the  thickening  signs  of  the 
approach  of  a  whole  new  continent  in  philosophy 
that  lies  hardly  out  of  sight.  It  will  be  a  land 
assuredly  of  firm  hope  of  immortality,  and  therefore  a 
land  of  inspiration  such  as  no  spiced  breath  of  the 
tropics  ever  breathed  into  the  physical  nostrils.  Our 
souls  are  sick  from  lack  of  the  more  heavily  fragrant 
airs  out  of  the  blessed  isles  of  certainties  as  to  what 
is  behind  the  veil.  It  is  already  certain  that  we  are 
to  discover  a  new  land,  and  that  the  inhabitant  of  it 
is  life,  not  mechanism.  [Applause.] 

Two  positions  of  much  importance  have  been 
proved,  I  hope,  in  lectures  preceding  this :  first,  the 
explicit  and  entire  agreement  of  Beale  and  Huxley 
as  to  all  the  central  facts  concerning  living  tissues, 
and  this  in  spite  of  the  disagreement  of  these  author- 
ities on  other  points;  and,  secondly,  the  crescent 
unanimity  of  experts  for  thirty-five  years  as  to  those 
same  facts.  The  two  initial  propositions  which  I 
think  I  have  established  are,  that  rival  experts 
agree,  and  that  they  have  agreed  for  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  on  the  facts  fundamental  in 
our  discussions  here.  Let  us,  now,  summarize  our 


124  BIOLOGY. 

knowledge  of  bioplasm,  remembering,  as  we  do  so, 
that  we  have  the  authority  of  Huxley,  of  Carpen- 
ter, of  Frey,  of  Dalton,  of  Beale,  of  Dry sd ale,  of 
Bain,  of  Ranke,  and  of  Kolliker.  You  will  per- 
mit me,  for  the  sake  of  clearness  of  thought,  to  num- 
ber the  points  of  our  positive  knowledge  in  biological 
science. 

Bioplasm,  otherwise  called  protoplasm,  or  germinal 
matter,  — 

1.  Is  transparent ; 

2.  Colorless ; 

3.  Viscid,  or  glue-like  ; 

4.  Under  the   highest  microscopical  powers  is  ap- 
parently structureless  ; 

5.  Exhibits  these  characters  at  every  period  of  its 
existence ; 

6.  Shows  itself,  under  all  the  tests  known  to  phy- 
sical science,  to  be  the  same  in  the  animal  and,  in 
the  plant,  in  the  sponge  and  in  the  brain ; 

7.  Is  capable  of  throbbing  movements,  or  of  advan- 
cing one  portion  of  itself  beyond  another  portion  ; 

8.  Is  capable  of  rectilinear  movements  ; 

9.  Executes  so  many  movements,  that  the   same 
mass   probably  never  twice  in  its  life  assumes  the 
same  form  ; 

10.  May  exist  in  masses  less  than  one  one-hundred- 
thousandth  of  an  inch,  or  as  large  as  one  two-hun- 
dredth of  an  inch  in  diameter,  but,  as  constituting 
the  nuclei  of  fully-formed  cells,  is   usually  found  in 
masses  from  one   six-thousandth  to  one  three-thou- 
sandth of  an  inch  in  diameter  ; 


LIFE,   OB  MECHANISM  — WHICH?  125 

11.  Absorbs  nutrient  matter,  which  may  be  either 
inorganic  or  formed  material ; 

12.  Instantaneously  changes  this  dead  matter  into 
living  matter ; 

13.  Does  so  by  a  process  which  no  human  science 
can  imitate  or  explain ; 

14.  Throws  off  formed  material   to   constitute   a 
cell-wall  ; 

15.  Develops  within  itself  a  nucleus,  and  within 
that  a  nucleolus ; 

16.  May  exist  and  move,  however,  without  cell-wall 
or  nucleus ; 

17.  Spins   the   threads   of  nerves,  arteries,  veins, 
bones,  and  all  the  mechanism  of  the  system,  by  throw- 
ing off  formed  material ; 

18.  Weaves  these  threads  into  the  infinity  of  co- 
ordinated designs  in  the  plant  and  animal ; 

19.  Can  by  no  possible  outer  environment  be  made 
to  produce  nerve  if  it  should  produce  muscle,  or  mus- 
cle if  it  should  produce  nerve,  and  so  of  every  other 
tissue,  secretion,  and  deposit ; 

20.  Is  so  thickly  scattered  through  the  tissues,  that 
there  is  scarcely  a  space  one-five-hundredth  of  an  inch 
in  size  without  its  portion  of  it ; 

21.  Is  capable  of  self-subdivision  ; 

22.  In  its  self-subdivided  parts  has  all  its  original 
powers ; 

23.  Always  arises  from  preceding  bioplasm ; 

24.  Constitutes  about  one-fifth  of  the  bulk  of  living 
bodies ; 

25.  Is  the  sole   agency  by  which   every  kind   of 


126  BIOLOGY. 

living  thing  is  made,  or,  so  far  as  known,  has  been 
made  or  ever  will  be  made ; 

26.  When  it  divides  itself,  is  preceded  sometimes 
in  that  act  by  the  division  of  its  nucleus,  and  some- 
times not ; 

27.  May  throw  off  a  portion  of  itself  without  a  nu- 
cleus, and  develop  a  nucleus  in  the  detached  portion. 

28.  Forms  nuclei  and  nucleoli,  which  appear  to 
differ  sexually,  as  it  is  only  after  the  intermingling 
of  these  in  certain  cases  that  multiplication  takes 
place ; 

29.  Does  not  transform  the  nucleus,  or  nucleolus, 
directly  into  formed  material ; 

30.  Transforms  it  into  ordinary  bioplasm,  and  thus 
into  formed  material ; 

31.  When  recently  dead,  will  take  a  carmine  stain 
from  the  solution  of  carmine  in  ammonia,  as  formed 
material  will  not ; 

32.  At  its  death  is  resolved  into  fibrine,  albumen, 
fatty  matter,  and  salts ; 

33.  Forms  thus  the  spontaneously  coagulable  sub- 
stance on  the  diffusion  of  which  through  the  body 
the  rigidity  of  the  frame  after  death  depends ; 

34.  Is  in  direct  continuity  with  formed  material 
while  the  latter  is  in  process  of  formation. 

Such  is  the  most  interesting,  by  far,  of  all  the 
objects  known  to  physical  science. 

Carmine  staining,  the  great  discovery  of  1856  and 
1860,  must  take  place  immediately  after  the  death  of 
the  bioplasm,  or  it  cannot  be  successfully  executed. 
Many  unskilful  manipulators  in  the  laboratory,  and 


LIFE,  OB  MECHANISM  —  WHICH?  127 

amateurs  without  number,  have  endeavored  to  stain 
the  tissue  of  plants  and  animals,  and  have  waited  too 
long  after  its  death,  and  have  failed.  Sometimes,  too, 
they  have  not  rightly  compounded  the  materials  for 
their  carmine  solution,  a  distinct  receipt  for  which 
you  will  find  in  Beale's  work  on  the  microscope. 
When  the  process  of  staining  is  performed  soon  after 
the  death  of  a  tissue,  all  germinal  points  or  bioplasts 
in  it  come  out  with  a  red  color;  but  the  formed  mate- 
rial is  not  stained  at  all. 

[From  this  point  on,  Mr.  Cook  referred  to  large 
colored  diagrams  hung  on  the  wall  back  of  the  plat- 
form.] 

These  eloquent  representations  of  stained  tissues 
are  exact  reproductions  of  Dr.  Beale's  famous  illus- 
trations, and  were  made  by  Mr.  Stone,  an  artist  of 
the  Studio  building,  who  spoke  admiringly  of  Beale's 
illustrations  the  instant  he  saw  them.  Here  is  the 
whole  cell  with  its  wall,  bioplast,  and  nucleus.  (See 
plate  I,  fig.  1.)  Two  currents  exist  in  every  cell,  — 
one  flowing  inward  in  the  direction  of  this  arrow, 
and  the  other  passing  out  from  the  centre  of  the 
bioplast  in  the  direction  of  this  arrow.  Every  par- 
ticle of  matter  that  can  be  found  in  a  living  being 
is  of  one  of  three  kinds,  —  nutrient  matter,  living 
matter,  or  formed  matter.  Nutrient  matter  comes 
through  the  wall  of  the  cell,  and,  entering  into  the 
bioplasm,  is  there  transformed  into  living  matter. 

You  had  better  not  take  a  cell,  however,  as  the 
type  of  the  elementary  part  in  the  living  tissue.  If 
you  are  to  be  abroast  of  the  very  latest  investigations 


128  BIOLOGY. 

concerning  the  cell-theory,  you  will  take  a  naked 
mass  of  bioplasm  like  this  as  the  elementary  part. 
(See  plate  I,  fig.  2.)  As  I  showed  you  in  my  last 
lecture,  on  both  Huxley's  and  Beale's  authority,  it 
is  not  essential  at  all  that  there  be  a  wall  of  formed 
material  around  the  naked  mass  of  bioplasm.  It  is 
not  essential  at  all  there  be  a  nucleus  within  it. 
That  is  the  advance  we  have  made  since  1838. 
Nevertheless,  if  you  are  to  understand  the  action 
of  these  currents,  it  is  well  to  keep  in  mind  the  cell- 
wall.  Nutrient  material  may  pass  through  the  cell- 
wall  in  animal  tissues  just  as  sap  passes  through  the 
intercellular  substance  in  vegetable  tissues.  When 
once  in  the  bioplast,  the  nutrient  matter  is  seized 
on  by  this  living  matter,  which  you  see  colored  with 
carmine  in  all  these  illustrations,  and  nuclei  are  de- 
veloped in  the  bioplast,  and  nucleoli  within  the 
nuclei.  The  bioplast  produces  the  nucleus,  and  not 
the  nucleus  the  bioplast.  It  throws  off  formed  mate- 
rial around  its  quivering  edges,  and  thus  forms  a  cell- 
wall.  In  that  wall  the  oldest  formed  material  is  on 
the  outside,  and  the  next  oldest  just  within,  and  so 
on  to  the  inner  part  of  the  wall,  which  is  in  physical 
continuity  with  the  bioplasm. 

Movement  is  going  on  all  the  while  in  any  naked 
mass  of  bioplasm.  Here  is  a  bioplast,  naked,  color- 
less, structureless  matter;  and  it  moves  so  that  it 
takes  these  many  shapes  in  five  seconds,  and  these 
many  other  shapes  in  one  minute.  (See  plate  I, 
figs.  2  and  3.)  Here  we  must  hold  fast  to  the 
Ariadne  clew,-  that  every  change  must  have  an 


LITE,   OR  MECHANISM  —  WHICH'?  129 

adequate  cause.  We  come  here  to  fathomless  de- 
sign ;  but  let  us  enter  by  slow  stages  on  these 
sublimities  of  research. 

Here  is  a  young  tendon,  and  here  is  an  old  tendon. 
The  living  matter  is  red,  as  you  notice,  and  runs  in 
lines  through  the  tendon  ;  and  yet  the  tendon  is 
narrow.  But  in  the  old  tendon  the  formed  mate- 
rial is  more  abundant  than  in  the  new ;  and  yet  all 
the  formed  material  which  makes  an  increased  thick- 
ness in  the  old  has  been  thrown  off  by  these  bioplasts. 
They  have  here  thrown  off  formed  material  so  as  to 
make  a  tendon,  which  is,  as  you  know,  a  structure 
very  different  from  muscular  fibre  and  from  nervous 
fibre. 

Here  is  one  set  of  bioplasts  that  is  intended  to 
weave  a  tendon,  here  one  that  is  to  weave  a  mus- 
cular fibre,  and  here  one  that  is  to  weave  a  nervous 
fibre.  There  is  no  possible  external  influence  that 
can  make  them  exchange  offices  with  each  other. 
You  have  here  a  tendon,  there  a  muscle,  there  a 
nerve,  all  woven  by  these  bioplasts.  We  know  that 
they  are  thus  woven,  and  that  every  change  must 
have  an  adequate  cause.  Adhere,  gentlemen,  to  that 
axiomatic  truth,  though  the  heavens  fall.  From  your 
bioplast  spindles  flows  off  formed  matter  —  here  a 
miracle  of  muscle,  there  a  miracle  of  tendon,  there  a 
miracle  of  nerve. 

The  cellular  integument  is  not  unworthy  of  no- 
tice ;  for  that  shows  us  the  career  of  its  bioplasts 
from  the  first  to  the  last.  You  have  here  the 
skin  that  covers  one  of  the  papilla  on  the  tongue 


130  BIOLOGY. 

of  a  frog.  (See  plate  IT,  fig.  1.)  That  infinite- 
ly delicate  membrane  that  covers  the  little  sensi- 
tive points  on  the  tongue  is  here  magnified.  You 
notice  that  the  bioplasts  on  the  lower  or  inner  side 
are  young,  and  that  there  is  not  much  formed  mate- 
rial around  them.  There  are  no  distinct  cells  in  the 
younger  part  of  a  tissue.  This  intercellular  sub- 
stance is  not  formed  into  the  ring-shapes  which  you 
see  further  on,  where  the  tissue  is  older.  As  the 
bioplasts  grow,  the  formed  material  about  them  in- 
creases in  thickness,  until  it  becomes  so  thick  that  the 
nutrient  matter  will  not  go  through  the  cell-walls. 
Then  the  bioplasts  languish  ;  they  grow  smaller  and 
smaller,  and  at  last  the  cells  in  which  the  bioplasts 
are  dead  scale  off.  When  dead  —  never  before,  ex- 
cept by  violence  —  they  drop  away;  but  their  places 
are  supplied  by  soldiers  that  take  position  in  the  gap 
of  the  lines,  and  build  according  to  the  pattern  of  the 
design  of  the  whole  organization.  You  have  here 
(see  plate  II,  fig.  2)  colored  illustrations  of  several 
stages  of  the  growth  of  a  cell  —  its  youth,  its  adoles- 
cence, its  middle  life,  its  advancing  age,  its  extreme 
old  age. 

Remember  that  a  mass  of  bioplasm  has  a  tendency 
to  assume  a  more  or  less  spheroidal  form.  But  it 
changes  itself  in  the  course  of  a  minute  into  all  the 
protean  shapes  indicated  here,  first  by  the  black, 
then  by  the  unbroken  line,  then  by  the  broken  red 
line,  and  divides  and  subdivides  its  edges,  until  at 
last  it  throws  off  this  portion  of  itself,  which  has  the 
same  powers  with  its  parent.  (See  plate  I,  fig.  3.) 


LIFE,  OR  MECHANISM  —  WHICH?  131 

We  find  under  our  astounded  gaze  nothing  but  color- 
less, glue-like,  transparent  matter;  and  yet  we  see 
it  performing  all  these  miracles  of  as  many  differ- 
ent sorts  as  there  are  different  sorts  of  tissues  to  be 
woven. 

In  a  single  nerve  there  is  an  unspeakable  com- 
plexity; but  come  to  something  a  little  more  complex. 
Let  us  stand  with  open  eyes  before  this  revelation 
of  Almighty  God.  Here  is  a  nerve  wound  spirally 
around  another  fibre.  (See  plate  II,  fig.  5.)  How  is 
it  made  to  twine  about  its  trellis-work  ?  Why,  when 
that  nerve  begins  to  be  formed  in  a  living  organism, 
these  bioplasts  in  it  are  near  each  other.  They  begin 
to  throw  off  formed  material.  The  object  is  to  weave 
so  as  to  produce  this  delicate  nerve  that  is  coiled 
spirally  around  the  other  fibre.  The  bioplasts  were 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  and  they  begin  to  separate. 
They  weave,  and  they  carry  a  spiral  nerve  around 
that  other  fibre  with  perfect  precision. 

Adhere  to  your  clear  ideas.  Materialists  say  that 
all  this  is  done  by  molecular  machinery.  Do  they 
know  what  they  are  talking  about  when  they  use 
that  phrase?  They  say  that  here  are  "infinitely 
complicated  chemical  properties."  They  say  that  all 
these  things  occur  merely  by  "  a  transmutation  of 
physical  forces."  Do  they  know  what  they  are  saying 
when  they  utter  propositions  of  that  sort?  The 
tendency  of  the  latest  science  begins  to  throw  into 
derision  all  materialism  of  this  kind.  The  Germans 
have  a  proverb  which  says,  "  The  clear  is  the  true  ; " 
and  ascertained  truth  can  be  made  clear.  Will  you 


132  BIOLOGY. 

make  it  clear  that  "  molecular  machinery,"  however 
complicated,  can  achieve  these  results?  There  a 
tendon,  there  a  muscle,  and  there  a  nerve,  are  woven, 
and  all  by  the  same  machinery  ?  The  same  causes 
ought  to  produce  the  same  results.  There  is  an  al- 
most measureless  difference  in  your  results ;  but  in 
all  ascertainable  physical  qualities  this  bioplasm  is 
the  same  thing  in  every  tissue.  [Applause.] 

Marvels,  however,  have  but  just  begun.  We  might 
pause  long  on  these  earlier  stages  in  the  formation 
of  tissues ;  but  there  is  one  word  or  fact  we  ought  to 
bow  down  before,  if  we  have  eyes.  (See  plate  III.) 
It  is  co-ordination,  the  adjustment  of  part  to  part  in  a 
living  organism.  A  vast  number  of  tissues  are  woven 
side  by  side ;  and  their  co-ordination  is  the  supreme 
miracle.  It  is  more  than  much,  my  friends,  to  weave 
a  nerve,  a  muscle,  a  vein.  But  here  we  have  a  mass 
of  thin  tissues  from  a  tree-frog,  and  you  have  here 
muscles  and  veins  and  nerves  interlacing  with  each 
other  intricately.  Not  only  do  the  mystic  bioplasts 
know  enough  to  coil  one  fibre  around  another  fibre 
spirally,  but  they  weave  the  whole  complexity  of  the 
tissues  together.  How  ?  So  that  there  is  no  clash- 
ing among  the  multitudinous  wheels  of  the  living 
organism.  In  the  naked  bioplast  we  see  changes 
going  on ;  and  the  question  is,  What  is  an  adequate 
cause  of  these  changes?  Life,  or  mechanism  — 
which  ?  In  the  different  threads  that  are  woven  by 
the  bioplasts  we  must  ask :  Life,  or  mechanism  — 
which  ?  But  here,  before  this  transfigured  represen- 
tation of  the  co-ordination  of  tissue  with  tissue,  the 


LIFE,   OR  MECHANISM  —  WHICH?  133 

question  answers  itself:  Life, or  mechanism — which? 
[Applause.] 

Here  is  the  last  white  and  mottled  bird  that  flew  to 
us  out  of  the  tall  Tribune  tower ;  and  softly  folded 
under  its  wing  are  these  words  concerning  Darwin 
from  Thomas  Carlyle  at  his  own  fireside  in  London : 
"  So-called  literary  and  scientific  classes  in  England 
now  proudly  give  themselves  to  protoplasm,  origin 
of  species,  and  the  like,  to  prove  that  God  did  not 
build  the  universe.  I  have  known  three  genera- 
tions of  the  Darwins,  —  grandfather,  father,  and  son, 
atheists  all."  [I  do  not  call  Darwin  an  atheist;  but 
this  testimony  is  very  significant.]  "  The  brother  of 
the  present  famous  naturalist,  a  quiet  man,  who 
lives  not  far  from  here,  told  me  that  among  his 
grandfather's  effects  he  found  a  seal  engraven  with 
this  legend,  '  Omnia  ex  conchis '  (4  every  thing  from 
a  clam-shell ').  I  saw  the  naturalist  not  many  months 
ago ;  told  him  that  I  had  read  his  '  Origin  of  the 
Species,'  and  other  books ;  that  he  had  by  no  means 
satisfied  me  that  men  were  descended  from  monkeys, 
but  had  gone  far  toward  persuading  me  that  he  and 
his  so-called  scientific  brethren  had  brought  the  pres- 
ent generation  of  Englishmen  very  near  to  mon- 
keys. A  good  sort  of  man  is  this  Darwin,  and 
well  meaning,  but  with  very  little  intellect.  Ah ! 
it  is  a  sad  and  terrible  thing  to  see  nigh  a  whole 
generation  of  men  and  women  professing  to  be 
cultivated,  looking  around  in  a  purblind  fashion, 
and  finding  no  God  in  this  universe.  I  suppose  it 
is  a  re-action  from  the  reign  of  cant  and  hollow  pre- 


134  BIOLOGY. 

tence,  professing  to  believe  what  in  fact  they  do  not 
believe.  And  this  is  what  we  have  got :  all  things  from 
frog-spawn ;  the  gospel  of  dirt  the  order  of  the  day. 
The  older  I  grow,  —  and  I  now  stand  upon  the  brink 
of  eternity,  —  the  more  comes  back  to  me  the  sen- 
tence in  the  catechism,  which  I  learned  when  a  child, 
and  the  fuller  and  deeper  its  meaning  becomes, - 
4  What  is  the  great  end  of  man  ?  To  glorify  God, 
and  enjoy  him  forever.'  No  gospel  of  dirt,  teaching 
that  men  have  descended  from  frogs  through  monkeys, 
can  ever  set  that  aside "  (Daily  Tribune,  Nov.  4, 
1876.  Extract  from  a  letter  from  Carlyle  published 
in  Scotland,  and  quoted  in  the  London  Times). 

Will  haughty  Boston,  will  the  colleges  of  New 
England,  will  tender  and  thoughtful  souls  every- 
where, listen  to  Thomas  Carlyle  as  he  stands  upcn 
the  brink  of  eternity  ?  [Applause.] 


VII. 

DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?    INVOLUTION  AND 
EVOLUTION. 

THE    FIFTY-SECOND    LECTURE    IN   THE    BOSTON    MONDAY   LEC- 
TURESHIP,   DELIVERED    IN    TREMONT    TEMPLE 
NOV.    13. 


"DIE  Nothwendigkeit  fiir  zrwei  unvergleichbare  Kreise  von 
Erscheinungen  zunachst  zwei  gesonderte  Erklarungsgriinde  zu 
verlangen,  verbot  uns  jeden  Versuch,  aus  "Wirkungen  matericller 
Stoffe,  so  fern  sie  materiel  sind,  das  innere  Leben  als  einen  selbst- 
verstandlichen  Erfolg  ableiten  zuwollen."  — HERMANN  LOTZE,  Mi' 
krokosmus,  I.,  186. 

"  ATTENTION  to  those  philosophical  questions  which  underlie  all 
Science,  is  ag  rare  as  it  is  needful."  —  PROFESSOR  T.  H.  HUXLEY, 
Contemporary  Review,  Nov.,  1871,  p.  443. 


VII. 

DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?      INVOLUTION 
AND  EVOLUTION. 

IF  the  Greeks  had  possessed  the  microscope,  they 
would  in  all  probability  never  have  been  thrown  into 
debate  over  the  famous  question  of  their  philosophy, 
whether  the  relation  of  the  soul  to  the  body  is  that 
of  harmony  to  a  harp,  or  of  a  rower  to  a  boat  (PLATO, 
Phcedon).  According  to  the  former  of  these  two 
theories,  the  music  must  cease  when  the  harp  is 
broken :  according  to  the  latter,  the  rower  may  sur- 
vive, although  his  boat  is  destroyed.  He  may  be 
completely  safe,  even  when  his  frail  vessel,  splintered 
by  all  the  surges  and  lightnings,  rots  on  the  tusks  of 
the  reefs,  or  sinks  in  the  fathomless  waste,  or  dis- 
solves to  be  blown  about  the  world  by  the  howling 
seas.  In  the  one  case,  death  does,  in  the  other  it  does 
not,  end  all.  Dim  as  was  to  the  Greeks  of  Pericles' 
day  the  whole  field  which  science  has  entered  with 
the  microscope  for  the  first  time  in  the  last  fifty  years, 
all  their  greatest  poets  and  philosophers  held  that  the 
relation  of  the  soul  to  the  body  is  that  of  the  rower 
to  a  boat.  This  was  the  common  metaphor  as  men 
conversed  on  this  theme  under  the  Acropolis  two 

137 


138  BIOLOGY. 

thousand  years  ago.  Without  Christian  prejudices, 
Greek  tragedy  is  full  of  the  dying  faith  of  Socrates. 
JEschylus,  with  his  eyes  of  dew  and  lightning  fixed 
on  the  fact  of  immortality,  strikes  the  central  chord 
of  his  harp ;  and  one  terrific  thrum  of  it  1  often  in 
still  days  hear  across  twenty  centuries : 

"Blood  for  blood,  .and  blow  for  blow: 
Thou  shalt  reap  as  thou  didst  sow." 

What  if  Aristotle  and  Plato  and  ^Eschylus  had 
had  Beale's  and  Helmholtz's  and  Dana's  eyes  in  the 
study  of  living  tissues? 

When  modern  investigation  asserts  that  life  directs 
the  movements  of  bioplasm,  it  does  not  deny  at  all 
that  currents  of  physical  and  chemical  forces  are 
floating  around  the  bioplast  boat.  It  asserts  simply 
that  the  oars  are  in  the  hands  of  life.  You  will  not 
understand  me  to  deny  that  the  rower  in  the  boat  is 
aided  by  the  currents  beneath  him,  by  the  winds 
around  him,  and  by  his  own  weight  and  the  inertia 
of  his  vessel.  Nevertheless,  between  the  rower  and 
the  boat  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  inert  log  that  may 
be  floating  beside  him  on  the  other,  there  is  plainly 
all  the  difference  that  exists  betwen  the  living  and 
the  not-living.  Your  rower  takes  advantage  of  all 
the  forces  around  him ;  he  can  give  them  new  direc- 
tions ;  he  presides  over  them.  He  can  sail  against 
the  wind ;  he  can  row  against  the  current ;  he  gov- 
erns the  forces  that  wheel  in  mysterious  complex 
cycles  above  and  around  and  beneath  him  ;  he  makes 
them  his  own,  and  so  is  a  living  thing  on  the  water. 


DOES   DEATH  END   ALL?  189 

Just  so,  life  uses  the  physical  and  chemioal  forces  at 
work  in  living  organisms. 

There  ought  to  stand  before  every. discussion  defi- 
nitions, just  as  before  one  of  Shakspeare's  dramas 
there  stand  the  names  of  the  dramatis  persons.  I 
know  into  what  an  intricate  tropical  forest  of  thought 
I  am  entering ;  and  I  am  fully  aware  that  the  chief 
personage  here  is  one  whose  character  never  has  been 
successfully  described  in  a  definition.  What  is  life  ? 
Thousands  and  thousands  of  definitions  have  been 
attempted  of  that  term  ;  and  we  have  as  yet  in  words 
no  satisfactory  statement  of  what  life  means ;  but  we 
all  understand  very  well  what  the  thing  is. 

Herbert  Spencer  defines  life  as  "  The  definite  com- 
bination of  heterogeneous  changes,  both  simultane- 
ous and  successive,  in  correspondence  with  external 
co-existences  and  sequences."  This  definition  has 
been  very  much  admired;  and  I  suppose  you  all 
understand  what  it  means.  The  latest  science  finds 
this  definition  defective,  because  it  does  not  limit  the 
changes  of  which  it  speaks  to  one  specifically  consti- 
tuted substance  now  known  as  bioplasm  (DiiYSDALE, 
Protoplasmic  Theory  of  Life  :  London,  1874.  P.  176). 

I  know  what  I  venture  ;  but,  as  my  definition  of 
life,  I  must  give  these  words :  The  power  which  directs 
the  movements  of  bioplasm.  I  beg  you  to  notice  that 
I  do  not  say  that  life  is  the  force  which  moves  bioplasm, 
although,  as  a  loose  definition,  the  latter  phrase  would 
do.  Bioplasm  is  moved  in  part  by  physical  and  chemi- 
cal forces,  though  not  chiefly.  Chemical  and  physi- 
cal forces,  however,  are  not  called  living  in  the  best 


140  BIOLOGY. 

philosophy.  To  say  that  life  is  the  force  that  moves 
bioplasm  is  to  say  that  all  the  power  there  is  in  the 
river  on  which  the  boat  and  rower  float  originates  in 
the  rower.  I  say  nothing  of  that  sort.  The  force 
of  the  river  belongs  to  the  river  ;  that  of  the  oars,  to 
the  rower.  The  power  which  causes  your  skiff  to 
move  against  the  current,  or  which  catches  the  wind 
in  the  sail,  is  that  of  its  living  occupant,  who  directs 
other  forces,  and  puts  forth  force  of  Ms  own.  Never- 
theless, in  the  motion  of  your  little  boat,  there  is  a 
combination  of  the  power  of  the  rower  and  the  power 
of  the  currents.  So,  in  the  motion  of  your  bioplast, 
there  is  the  agency  of  purely  physical  and  chemical 
forces,  together  with  the  co-ordinating  agency  or 
directing  power  which  weaves  the  tissues,  and  inter- 
weaves tissue  with  tissue  into  designs  marvellous  be- 
yond comment,  and  which  cannot  be  accounted  for 
at  all  by  any  thing  simply  chemical  or  physical.  I 
affirm,  therefore,  that  life  may  be  denned  provision- 
ally as  the  rower  in  the  boat,  or  the  power  which 
directs  the  movements  of  germinal  matter.  To  give 
a  fuller  definition,  I  may  say  that  life  is  the  invisible, 
individual,  co-ordinating  cause  directing  the  forces  in- 
volved in  the  production  and  activity  of  any  organism 
possessing  individuality.  Of  course  the  vitality  of  a 
cell  differs  from  the  life  of  the  whole  organism  of 
which  it  forms  a  part ;  for  many  cells  may  die  and  the 
life  of  the  organism  to  which  they  belong  not  be 
affected.  Important  distinctions  exist  between  vital- 
ity, life,  and  soul.  A  single  cell  may  have  vitality ; 
the  individual  organism  to  which  the  cell  belongs 


DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?  141 

has  life  ;  and  that  organism,  if  possessed  of  self-con- 
sciousness, and  of  the  power  of  self-direction,  has 
soul.  To  assert  Lotze's  doctrine  of  an  immaterial 
principle  as  the  cause  of  form  in  organisms  is  not  to 
assert  the  theory  of  vital  force. 

When  I  woke  after  my  first  night  in  Venice,  which 
I  had  entered  by  the  full  moon,  my  earliest  act  was 
to  ascend  the  tower  of  St.  Mark's,  and  obtain  a  gen- 
eral view  of  the  city  by  the  rising  sun.  Before  we 
discuss  our  central  question,  "  Does  death  end  all  ?  " 
let  us  take  a  large  view  of  this  theme,  as  if  from  St. 
Mark's  tower.  Our  rising  sun  here  is  the  refulgent 
certainty  that  every  change  must  have  an  adequate 
cause.  When  our  national  historian  wrote  the  first 
volume  of  his  history  of  the  United  States,  it  was  not 
known  that  the  Mound-builders  had  left  elaborate 
traces  of  themselves  in  the  spacious  West.  George 
Bancroft,  therefore,  asserted  that  the  Mississippi 
valley  was  without  any  remains  of  human  works. 
But  since  he  wrote  that  first  volume  of  his,  we  have 
discovered  the  most  intricate  kinds  of  mounds  in  the 
prairies ;  and  it  is  now  universally  conceded  that 
there  was  a  race  of  Mound-builders,  and  that  the 
Mississippi  valley  is  full  of  their  works.  On  the 
prairie  near  Adrian,  Michigan,  for  example,  there  is  a 
night-hawk  traced  by  mounds  on  the  earth ;  and  the 
spread  of  its  wings  is  two  or  three  hundred  feet. 
Over  against  him  on  the  ver.dant,  ancient  acres,  the 
mounds  present  the  figure  of  a  warrior  with  a  bal- 
anced spear.  Bancroft  knew  something  of  these 
mounds  at  the  time  he  wrote  his  book ;  but  he  said 


142  BIOLOGY. 

they  were  produced  by  geological  action.  In  the 
Drift  period  these  peculiar  formations  had  been  made 
by  the  complex  swirls  of  the  water  and  icebergs.  If 
a  man  should  undertake  to  hold  to  that  theory  now, 
and  affirm  that  the  Drift  period  formed  these  mounds, 
what  would  you  say  to  him  ?  There  is  your  night- 
hawk.  Is  it  not  possible  for  a  complexity  of  geologi- 
cal forces  —  gravitation,  chemical  action,  and  the 
turmoil  of  a  cooling  planet,  of  which  Strauss,  Vir- 
chow,  Hackel,  and  Huxley  make  so  much  —  to  trace 
on  the  prairie  a  night-hawk  ?'  Is  it  not,  at  least,  pos- 
sible that  your  night-hawk  might  have  been  traced 
there  by  the  movements  of  matter  having  in  it  the 
power  and  potency  of  all  life  ?  May  it  not  be  that 
thus  were  produced  your  savage  and  his  balanced 
spear  ?  You  would  say  that  a  man  holding  such 
views  ought  to  be  sent  to  the  lunatic  wards.  No 
may  be  is  good  for  any  thing  in  science,  unless  it  may 
be  an  is.  But  how  about  your  actually  living  night- 
hawk,  flying  there  above  the  prairie  in  the  edge  of 
the  evening  ?  How  about  your  savage  there  miracu- 
lously alive,  and  poising  his  spear  ?  Although  you 
believe  this  rude  earthwork  tracery  of  the  night- 
hawk  and  the  savage  cannot  possibly  have  originated 
in  any  complexity  of  merely  physical  forces  in  a  cool- 
ing planet,  you  will  allow  a  man,  if  he  is  full  enough 
of  scientific  authority,  to  come  before  you,  and  seri- 
ously puzzle  you,  as  Strauss,  Huxley,  Virchow,  and 
Hackel  attempt  to  do,  with  the  assertion  that  the 
bioplast  —  which  stands  at  the  head  of  the  develop- 
ment of  your  living  night-hawk,  and  which  had  in 


DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?  143 

it  all  that  has  followed  of  life  on  this  globe  —  came 
into  existence  in  some  Drift  period  by  a  fortuitous 
concourse  of  atoms.  You  ought  for  this  to  be  sent  to 
the  lunatic  wards.  [Applause.]  The  reply  to  all 
reasoning  of  that  sort  is  simply  this,  that  merely 
physical  forces  do  not  act  so.  As  Agassiz  used  to 
say,  "  The  products  of  merely  physical  forces  are  the 
same  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe,  and  during  all  time 
known  to  man ;  but  the  products  of  the  forces  that 
produce  life  are  varied  under  the  same  circumstances. 
Between  two  such  sets  of  forces  there  can  be  no 
causal  or  genetic  connection  "  (AGASSiz,  Essay  on 
Classification).  The  results  of  the  forces  that  pro- 
duce organisms  differ  in  different  periods,  and  there- 
fore we  cannot  account  for  them  by  these  invisible, 
blind,  mechanical  laws.  If,  on  the  prairie,  the  figure 
of  your  night-hawk  was  not  traced  by  a  complication 
of  these  forces,  assuredly,  in  the  name  of  all  clear 
ideas,  the  first  bioplast  that  came  into  existence, 
and  the  bioplasts  that  weave  the  night-hawk  and  sav- 
age, were  not  constructed  by  any  such  complication 
of  physical  forces,  acting  without  design  or  choice. 
[Applause.] 

Does  death  end  all  ?  The  answer  to  that  question 
depends  on  the  reply  to  another:  Is  life  the  cause  of 
organization,  or  organization  the  cause  of  life  ?  Is 
the  relation  of  the  soul  to  the  body  that  of  harmony 
to  the  harp,  or  that  of  the  harper  to  the  harp  ? 

What  are  the  strategic  points  in  the  discussion  of 
the  origin  of  life  ? 

1.  Tyndall,  Huxley,  Bain,  Drysdale,  and  Spencer 


144  BIOLOGY. 

himself,  all  admit  that  the  actions  of  bioplasts  cannot 
be  explained  by  merely  chemical  properties  or  forces. 

If  I  succeed  in  showing  you  that  this  concession  is 
made  by  the  materialistic  school,  you  will  be  relieved 
from  much  distress  cast  on  you  by  popular  irrespon- 
sible scribblers  and  declaimers.  In  November,  1875, 
Professor  Tyndall  quoted  and  adopted  these  words 
of  DuBois  Reymond,  "  It  is  absolutely  and  forever 
inconceivable  that  a  number  of  carbon,  hydrogen, 
nitrogen,  and  oxygen  atoms  should  be  otherwise 
than  indifferent  as  to  their  own  position  and  motion, 
past,  present,  or  future."  [Applause.]  (See  Preface 
to  TYNDALL'S  Fragments  of  Science.  Also  his  article 
in  The  Fortnightly  Review,  November,  1875,  p.  585. 
Also  Dr.  CHAKLES  ELAM'S  art.  on  "  Automatism  and 
Evolution,"  Contemporary  Review^  September,  1876, 
p.  539.)  Tyndall  adds  in  his  own  words,  that  "  the 
continuity  between  molecular  processes  and  the  phe- 
nomena of  consciousness  is  the  rock  upon  which  ma- 
terialism must  inevitably  split  whenever  it  pretends 
to  be  a  complete  philosophy  of  the  human  mind." 
That  is  Tyndall,  if  you  please,  in  1875,  writing  a 
preface  to  the  Belfast  address,  which  needed  much 
explanation  after  its  errors  had  been  searchingly 
pointed  out  by  general  public  discussion. 

There  is  inertia  everywhere  in  all  that  we  call 
matter.  What  is  inertia  ?  The  incapacity  to  origi- 
nate force  or  motion.  Inertia  is  a  property  of  the 
matter  in  bioplasm  as  surely  as  of  that  in  any  other 
part  of  the  universe.  This  is  the  substance  of  Du- 
Bois Rcymond's  famous  concession,  that  it  is  forever 


DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?  145 

inconceivable  that  a  mass  of  physical  atoms  —  past, 
present,  or  to  come  —  should  be  outside  the  range  of 
the  law  of  inertia.  "There  is,"  says  Faraday  (Cor- 
relation and  Conservation  of  Forces,  p.  24),  "  one 
wonderful  condition  of  matter,  perhaps  its  only  true 
indication,  namely,  inertia." 

Even  Herbert  Spencer,  who  would  be  very  glad 
to  prove  the  opposite,  says  in  his  "  Biology  "  (vol.  i. 
p.  182),  "  The  proximate  chemical  principles,  or 
chemical  units,  —  albumen,  fibrine,  gelatine,  or  the 
hypothetical  proteine  substance,  —  cannot  possess  the 
property  of  forming  the  endlessly  varied  structures  of 
animal  forms."  This  is  Herbert  Spencer  in  1864. 
"  Nor,"  continues  he,  "  can  any  such  power  be  given 
to  the  cell  as  a  morphological  unit,  even  if  it  had  a 
right  to  that  title."  It  is  the  bioplast  that  is  the 
morphological  unit,  and  not  the  cell.  "  Therefore," 
concludes  Spencer,  "  there  is  no  alternative  but  to 
suppose  that  the  chemical  units  combine  into  units 
immensely  more  complex  than  themselves,  'and  that, 
in  each  organism,  the  physiological  units  produced 
by  this  further  compounding  of  highly  compound 
atoms  have  a  more  or  less  distinctive  character.  We 
must  conclude,  that,  in  each  case,  some  slight  differ- 
ence of  composition  in  these  units,  leading  to  some 
slight  difference  in  their  natural  play  of  forces,  pro- 
duces a  difference  in  the  form  which  the  aggregate  of 
them  assumes."  Spencer's  "  Biology  "  is  now  an  out- 
grown book,  so  rapid  has  been  the  progress  of  bio- 
logical knowledge  since  its  publication. 

But  the  reply  to  this  precious  theory  is,  that  invo- 


146  BIOLOGY. 

lution  and  evolution  are  a  fixed  equation.  If  these 
multiplex  molecules  and  their  merely  mechanical 
actions,  which  Spencer  says  build  the  body,  have  no 
life  behind  them,  you  will  get  no  life  out  of  them. 
[Applause.]  If  the  smaller  units  out  of  which  he 
makes  up  his  larger  units  have  no  life  in  them,  you 
will  obtain  from  the  latter  only  what  was  in  the 
former. 

Let  us  be  forever  sure  that  the  law  of  the  persistence 
of  force  requires  that  evolution  and  involution  should  be 
equal  to  each  other.  You  will  get  out  of  your  molecu- 
lar units  what  you  put  into  them,  and  nothing 
more.  But,  according  to  Spencer  himself,  the  chemi- 
cal and  physical  forces  and  properties  of  atoms  can- 
not build  an  organism.  Larger  molecular  masses 
made  up  of  these  units,  he  says,  may  do  so.  Not 
unless  there  can  be  more  evolved  from,  than  is  in- 
volved in,  these  units.  If  involution  and  evolution 
are  not  an  eternal  equation,  there  may  be  an  effect 
without  a  cause.  You  cannot  evolve  any  thing  which 
you  have  not  first  involved.  Huxley,  Spencer,  Bain, 
and  Drysdale,  'all  admit,  that,  if  you  make  up  your 
compounds  from  all  the  ascertained  molecular  activi- 
ties, you  involve  nothing  that  will  account  for  the 
weaving  of  these  complex  tissues.  That  adirission 
is  fatal  to  their  further  pretence,  that  a  combination 
can  be  made  which  will  evolve  what  has  not  been 
involved.  [Applause.] 

But  Dr.  Drysdale,  who  is  a  candid  Scotch  writer, 
makes  a  most  distinct  admission,  that,  even  after  we 
have  built  up  these  complicated  molecular  units,  the 


DOES   DEATH  END   ALL?  147 

matter  in  them  must  be  inert.  Hear  the  authority 
of  a  man  who  opposes  Beale's  opinion,  that  the  action 
of  the  bioplasts  cannot  be  accounted  for  except  by  a 
higher  than  physical  cause,  and  who  seriously  under- 
takes, while  admitting  Beale's  facts,  to  persuade  the 
world  that  this  matter  in  the  bioplasts  is  of  an  infi- 
nitely peculiar  sort,  and  that  all  it  needs  is  "  stimu- 
lus "  to  set  it  at  work  in  all  this  miraculous  weaving 
and  inweaving  and  co-ordination  of  tissues.  Dr. 
Drysdale  says  in  so  many  words  (^Protoplasmic 
Theory  of  Life,  p.  199),  "  No  matter  how  complex 
the  protoplasmic  molecule  may  be,  its  atoms  are  still 
nothing  but  matter,  and  must  share  its  properties  for 
good  or  evil^  and  among  the  rest  inertia.  Hence  it  can- 
not change  its  state  of  motion  nor  rest  without  the  influ- 
ence of  some  force  from  without.  True  spontaneity  of 
movement  is,  therefore,  just  as  impossible  to  it  as  to 
what  we  call  dead  matter.  ...  So  we  are  compelled  to 
admit  the  existence  of  an  exciting  cause  in  the  form  of 
some  force  from  without  to  give  the  initial  impulse  in 
all  vital  actions.  This  is  the  "  —  What  ?  The  soul  ? 
We  expect  him  to  say  that ;  but  what  he  says  is, 
"This  is  the  stimulus,"  whatever  that  may  mean. 
[Laughter.] 

It  is  very  surprising,  in  view  of  the  school  of 
thought  to  which  Professor  Alexander  Bain  of  Aber- 
deen belongs,  that,  in  his  work  on  "  The  Senses  and 
the  Intellect "  (p.  64),  he  should  go  so  far  as  to  up- 
hold the  doctrine  of  the  spontaneity  of  vital  actions, 
and  to  maintain  that  a  spontaneous  energy  resides  in 
the  nerve-centres  which  gives  them  the  power  of  initi- 


148  BIOLOGY. 

ating  molecular  movements  without  any  antecedent  sen- 
sation from  without,  or  emotion  from  within,  or  any 
antecedent  state  of  feeling  whatever,  or  any  stimulus 
extraneous  to  the  moving  apparatus  itself.  This  fact 
of  spontaneous  energy  he  regards  as  the  essential 
prelude  to  voluntary  power. 

So  much,  gentlemen,  for  the  latest  concessions  of 
materialists ;  but  I  hold  in  my  hand  here  the  best, 
or  certainly  the  freshest,  book  in  the  world  on  the 
"  Cellular  Theory ;  "  and  what  are  its  opening  words  ? 
All  medical  students  in  this  audience  will  know  that 
Professor  Heinrich  Frey  of  Zurich  is  a  great  authority 
on  the  cell-theory,  and  that  this  book  of  his  has  had 
an  enormous  sale  between  the  Alps  and  the  Baltic. 
Frey's  work  on  "  Microscopic  Technology  "  is  placed 
side  by  side  with  Strieker's  "  Histology  "  in  the  read- 
ing recommended  to  the  two  hundred  young  men  in 
the  Harvard  Medical  School  yonder  ;  but  fresher 
than  either  of  these  books  is  this  new  volume  pub- 
lished by  Frey  in  1875. 

Rufus  Choate,  as  you  remember,  used  sometimes 
to  lay  out  a  course  of  study  in  the  classics  perfectly 
parallel  with  that  of  the  young  men  in  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, and,  in  his  breathless  profession,  would  keep 
pace  with  them  year  after  year.  What  if  a  student 
of  religious  science,  who  has  no  right  to  know  any 
thing  about  physiology,  should  look  at  the  text-books 
in  use  in  Harvard  Medical  School  on  physiology  and 
other  topics,  and  by  this  means,  and  by  considerable 
conversation  with  men  of  science,  assuring  himself 
that  he  is  not  reading  rubbish,  and  with  a  profes- 


DOES   DEATH   END   ALL?  149 

sional  medical  library  at  his  command,  should  follow 
side  by  side  the  investigations  those  highly  privi- 
leged young  men  are  pursuing  yonder,  and  occasion- 
ally stand  with  them  in  their  dissecting-rooms?  I 
know  at  least  one  student  of  religious  science  who 
does  precisely  that,  and  is  fascinated  with  his  work. 
Biology  is  now  quite  as  interesting  as  the'  classics. 
In  your  Johns  Hopkins  University  in  Baltimoie, 
studies  are  elective ;  and  about  ninety  out  of  oie 
hundred  of  the  students  there  elect  biology  as  one 
of  their  subjects. 

Professor  Frey  of  Zurich,  in  this  work,  which  is 
hardly  dry  from  the  press,  prints,  face  to  face  with 
the  world,  these  as  his  very  first  sentences  :  "  A  deep 
abyss  separates  the  inorganic  from  the  organic,  the 
inanimate  from  the  animate.  The  rock-crystal  on  the 
one  side,  vegetable  and  animal  on  the  other  :  how  infi- 
nitely different  the  image  !  Is  it,  then,  possible  to 
bridge  Over  this  gulf?  We  answer,  Not  at  the  pres- 
ent time."  [Applause.]  We  turn  on  in  this  volume, 
and  find  that  reference  is  made  to  the  theory  that 
vital  transformations  are  much  like  crystallization, 
and  that  then  these  remarks  are  made,  with  a  very 
apparent  and  not  undeserved  sly  smile : 

"  Schwann,  the  founder  of  modern  histology, 
taught,  What  the  crystal  is  in  regard  to  the  inor- 
ganic, that  the  cell  is  in  the  sphere  of  life.  As  the 
former  shoots  from  the  mother  lye,  so,  also,  in  a  suit- 
able animal  fluid,  are  developed  the  constituents  cf 
the  cell,  nucleolus,  nucleus,  covering,  and  cell  con- 
tents. This  view  was  embraced  during  many  yejr*9 


150  BIOLOGY. 

it  explained  every  thing  so  conveniently.  This  uas, 
however,  over-hasty.  The  cell  arises  from  the  cell. 
A  spontaneous  origin  does  not  occur  "  (FEEY,  PRO- 
FESSOR HEINRICH,  Compendium  of  Histology,  Twenty- 
four  lectures.  Translated  by  Dr.  G.  R.  Cutter.  New 
York:  Putnam's  Sons,  1876.  Pp.  1,  14).  All  this 
is  in  accord  with  what  Huxley  says  in  his  article  in 
"  The  Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  "  There  is  no  par- 
allel between  the  actions  of  matter  in  the  mineral 
world  and  in  living  tissues." 

2.  After  the  unanimity  of  experts,  there  is  no 
higher  authority  on  any  scientific  doctrine  than  to 
find  it  taught  in  standard  text-bo.oks  in  schools  of  the 
first  rank ;  but  you  may  easily  ascertain  that  the  very 
latest  standard  text-books  oppose  the  mechanical  or 
materialistic  theory  of  life. 

Dr.  Tyson's  book  on  "  The  Cell  Doctrine "  is  in 
use  side  by  side  with  Frey  in  your  Harvard  Medical 
School ;  but  Tyson  opens  with  diagrams  from  Beale, 
and  closes  with  Beale ;  and  where  is  there  any  thing 
in  him  that  is  regarded  as  invulnerable,  that  he  did 
not  obtain  from  Beale  ?  Over  and  over,  in  the  lat- 
ter half  of  the  book,  as  he  closes  the  history  of  the 
thirty-nine  years  since  the  cell-theory  was  promul- 
gated, he  cites  Beale ;  and,  in  spite  of  all  the  sneers 
from  Huxley  and  others  about  "  aquosity  and  horo- 
logity,"  he  sums  up  established  science  thus,  "  We 
believe  that  the  proper  shaping,  arrangement,  and  func- 
tion of  these  elementary  parts,  is  not  a  process  identical 
or  analogous  to  crystallization,  taking  place  through 
merely  physical  laws,  but  that  there  is  a  presiding 


DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?          151 

agency  which  controls  such  arrangement  to  a  definite 
end."  [Applause.]  (TYSON,  DR.  JAMES,  The  Cell 
Doctrine,  pp.  112  and- 113.  Lindsay  and  Blakiston, 
1870.)  This  is  a  statement  out  of  a  text-book  men- 
tioned officially  in  the  catalogue  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity as  in  use  in  the  best  medical  school  of  your 
nation ;  and  here  is  the  best  German  book ;  and  I 
have  just  read  to  you  out  of  the  best  Scotch  book ; 
and  Beale's  is  the  best  English  book ;  and  they  are 
all  explicitly  agreed  in  the  assertion,  that  it  is  life, 
not  mechanism,  which  weaves  us  and  all  things  that 
live.  [Applause.] 

3.  I  affirm  that  we  have  under  the  microscope  ocu- 
lar demonstration  that  it  is  life  which  causes  organi- 
zation, and  not  organization  which  causes  life.  What 
is  the  first  thing  that  appears  in  the  formation  of  an 
organization  ?  A  mass  of  germinal  matter  that  has 
life,  but  no  organization.  You  know  what  a. naked 
bioplast  is,  —  a  little  speck  of  glue-like  matter,  trans- 
parent, colorless,  and,  under  the  highest  powers  of  the 
microscope  and  every  other  test  known  to  man,  show- 
ing no  organization,  but  yet  capable  of  multiplex 
movements,  —  all  these  in  a  minute  [referring  to 
colored  diagrams  on  the  platform].  "  We  fail," 
Huxley  says,  "  to  detect  any  organization  in  the  bio- 
plasmic  mass',  "  but  there  are  movements  in  it  and  life. 
We  see  the  movements:  they  must  have  a  cause. 
The  cause  of  the  movements  must  exist  before  the 
movements.  The  life  is  there  before  organization. 
But,  if  life  may  exist  before  organization,  it  may  do 
so  after  it,  or  outside  it. 


152  BIOLOGY. 

If,  according  to  custom  in  some  rude  games  oi 
sailors,  we  were  to  put  a  man  in  a  canvas  bag,  and 
throw  him  in  the  bag  upon  this  platform ;  and  if  that 
bag  were  to  begin  to  cast  out  a  promontory  here,  and 
a  promontory  there,  and  assume  scores  of  shapes,  and 
move  to  and  fro,  and  pick  up,  now  this  object,  and 
now  that,  —  we  should  have  no  unfit  representation 
of  a  portion  of  the  movements  of  a  naked  bioplasmic 
mass.  [Laughter.]  Your  astonishing  bag  here  picks 
up  this  chair,  which  cannot  move  of  itself;  and,  to 
make  the  parallel  complete,  it  must  have  the  power 
of  absorbing  this  inanimate  object,  and  of  changing 
it  into  something  just  like  itself,  or  alive.  Suddenly 
this  man  in  the  bag  may,  if  the  parallel  is  to  be  made 
perfect,  throw  off  a  small  sack  from  the  bag,  and 
that  instantly  begins  to  move  on  this  platform  :  it 
forthwith  commences  to  pick  up  lifeless  matter,  and 
to  transform  it  into  living  matter  like  itself.  It,  too, 
throws  off  other  little  sacks,  which  go  through  the 
same  motions  again.  We  should  say  that  sacks  of 
that  sort  had  very  complicated  machinery  in  them. 
[Laughter  and  applause.]  But  this  is  by  no  means 
the  chief  marvel. 

You  know,  gentlemen,  that  in  India  it  is  a  play  of 
the  children  and  of  grown  men  to  make  up  the  -form 
of  an  elephant  by  stacking  themselves  together,,  two 
men  making  a  leg  of  the  elephant,  six  or  eight  his 
body,  three  or  four  his  head,  one  or  two  his  proboscis. 
You  see  in  the  pictures  from  India  representations  of 
elephants,  made  up,  as  you  notice  when  you  look 
at  them  sharply,  wholly  of  human  forms.  Now,  to 


DOES   DEATH   END   ALL?  153 

carry  out  this  parallel,  we  must  have  our  first  canvas 
bag  transform  itself  into  many  canvas  bags,  and  then 
all  of  them  build  themselves  up,  after  this  Indian 
fashion,  into  the  elephant,  the  lion,  the  giraffe,  or  the 
palm-tree,  the  date,  or  the  pomegranate  ;  and  these 
must  live.  They  must  grow.  Some  of  the  miracu- 
lous sacks  will  drop  away  from  day  to  day;  but  n.:.w 
ones  must  take  their  places,  and  fill  out  the  design 
had  in  view  at  the  first.  Of  course,  the  part  assigned 
to  the  man  in  the  proboscis  of  an  elephant  thus  built 
must  be  very  different  from  that  assigned  to  a  man 
in  the  leg.  If  an  elephant  is  to  be  made  up  in  that 
way,  the  men  who  form  his  back  must  have  a  very 
different  position  from  the  men  who  form  the  tusks. 
There  must  be  very  peculiar  activities  put  forth  by 
each  man  in  each  part  of  your  elephant.  So,  al- 
though our  bioplasm  is,  to  all  appearance,  the  same 
thing  when  it  weaves  a  tendon,  and  when  it  weaves 
a  muscle,  and  when  it  weaves  a  nerve,  its  activities 
are  very  different.  Surely  the  invisible  molecular 
machinery  must  be  very  complicated  indeed ;  for  it 
makes  a  tendon  here,  a  muscle  here,  or  a  nerve  here. 
According  to  Spencer  and  this  astute  materialistic 
school,  the  bioplasts  are  nothing  but  molecular  ma- 
chinery, started  off  by  "  stimulus "  into  all  this 
weaving,  as  the  spark  starts  off  the  gunpowder  into 
explosion.  We  say,  that,  if  that  is  so,  the  molecular 
machinery  must  be  more  than  exceedingly  complex ; 
for  not  only  must  it  really  be  very  different  when  it 
weaves  a  nerve  from  what  it  is  when  it  weaves  a 
muscle;  but,  —  and  this  is  the  point  on  which  to  fas- 


154  BIOLOGY. 

ten  supreme  attention,  —  when  we  run  back  the 
examination  of  all  our  co-ordinated  tissues,  we  find 
that  assuredly  all  this  molecular  machinery  must  in 
some  way  have  existed,  or  have  been  provided  for,  in 
the  first  little  transparent,  colorless,  and  apparently 
structureless  bioplast  which  began  to  weave  your  ele- 
phant or  your  man,  your  pomegranate  or  your  palm. 
[Applause.]  A  rather  complicated  kind  of  molecu- 
lar machinery  to  be  crowded  into  a  space  so  small ! 
[Laughter.] 

The  acorn  which  hangs  above  the  nest  of  your 
eagle  has  in  it  bioplasts  that  differ  under  the  micro- 
scope in  no  particular  from  the  little  mass  of  bioplasm 
in  the  eagle's  egg.  Your  bioplasm  that  weaves  your 
oak  is,  to  all  human  investigation,  the  same  thing 
with  the  speck  of  bioplasm  which  weaves  your  eagle. 
Gentlemen,  there  is  no  inductive  evidence  of  the  ex- 
istence of  this  mechanism.  We  may  say,  therefore, 
that,  in  the  present  state  of  knowledge,  we  cannot 
prove  that  molecular  mechanism,  acted  upon  by  phy- 
sical and  chemical  forces,  is  the  sole  source  of  organ- 
ization. 

4.  Matter  in  living  tissues  is  directed,  controlled, 
arranged,  so  as  to  subserve  the  most  varied  and  com- 
plex purposes. 

Only  matter  and  mind  exist  in  the  universe. 

Matter  in  living  tissues  must  therefore  be  arranged 
either  by  matter  or  by  mind. 

No  material  properties  or  forces  are  known  to  be 
capable  of  producing  the  arrangements  which  exist 
in  living  tissue. 


DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?  155 

In  the  present  state  of  knowledge,  these  arrange- 
ments must  be  referred  to  mind  or  life  as  their  source. 

5.  Bioplasm  exhibits   peculiar   actions   found   no- 
where in  not-living  matter. 

It  exhibits  different  actions  in  every  different  ani- 
mal and  vegetable  tissue. 

For  each  class  of  these  peculiar  actions,  there  must 
be  a  peculiar  cause. 

That  cause  must  be  either  matter  or  mind. 

But  the  cause  has  qualities  which  cannot,  without 
self-contradiction,  be  attributed  to  inert  matter. 

It  must  therefore  exist  in  the  life,  or  an  immaterial 
element  of  the  organization. 

6.  It  is  plain,  that,  before  the  matter  which  forms 
the  tissues  has  entered  the  organization,  the  plan  of 
the  tissues  is  involved  in  the  earliest  bioplasts. 

There  is  forecast  involved,  therefore,  in  the  action 
of  the  bioplasts.  "  Bioplasm  prepares  for  far-off 
events,"  says  Professor  Lionel  Beale  over  and  over. 

Forecast  is  not  an  attribute  of  matter,  but  of  mind. 
An  immaterial  element  exists,  therefore,  in  living 
organisms. 

7.  There  is  a  great  fact  known  to   us  more    cer- 
tainly than  the  existence  of  matter :  it  is  the  unity 
of  consciousness.     I  know  that   I   exist,  and  that  I 
am  one.    Hermann  Lotze's  supreme  argument  against 
materialism  is  the  unity  of  consciousness.     I  know 
that  I  am  J,  and  not  you  ;  and  I  know  this  to  my  very 
finger-tips.     That  finger  is  a  part  of  my  organism, 
not  of  yours.     To  the  last  extremity  of  every  nerve, 
I  know  that  I  am  one.     The  unity  of  consciousness 


156  BIOLOGY. 

is  a  fact  known  to  us  by  much  better  evidence  than 
the  existence  of  matter.  I  am  a  natural  realist  in 
philosophy,  if  I  may  use  a  technical  term :  I  believe 
in  the  existence  of  both  matter  and  mind.  There 
are  two  things  in  the  universe ;  but  I  know  the  exist- 
ence of  mind  better  than  I  know  the  existence  of 
matter.  Sometimes  in  dreams  we  fall  down  preci- 
pices, and  awake,  and  find  that  the  gnarled  savage 
rocks  had  no  existence.  But  we  touched  them ;  we 
felt  them ;  we  were  bruised  by  them.  Who  knows 
but  that  some  day  we  may  wake,  and  find  that  all 
matter  is  merely  a  dream  ?  Even  if  we  do  that,  it 
will  yet  remain  true  that  I  am  I.  There  is  more  sup- 
Dort  for  idealism  than  for  materialism;  but  there  is 
fro  sufficient  support  for  either.  If  we  are  to  rever- 
ence all,  and  not  merely  a  fraction,  of  the  list  of 
axiomatic  or  self-evident  truths,  if  we  are  not  to  play 
fast  and  loose  with  the  intuitions  which  are  the 
eternal  tests  of  verity,  we  shall  believe  in  the  exist- 
ence of  both  matter  and  mind.  Hermann  Lotze  holds 
that  the  unity  of  consciousness  is  a  fact  absolutely 
incontrovertible  and  absolately  inexplicable  on  the 
theory  that  our  bodies  are  woven  by  a  complex  of 
physical  arrangements  and  physical  forces,  having 
no  co-ordinating  presiding  power  over  them  all.  1 
know  that  there  is  a  co-ordinating  presiding  power 
somewhere  in  me.  I  am  I.  I  am  one.  Whence  the 
sense  of  a  unity  of  consciousness,  if  we  are  made  up, 
according  to  Spencer's  idea,  or  Huxley's,  of  infinitely 
multiplex  molecular  mechanisms?  We  have  the 
idea  of  a  presiding  power  that  makes  each  man  one 


DOES   DEATH   END   ALL.  157 

individuality  from  top  to  toe.  How  do  we  get  it? 
It  must  have  a  sufficient  cause.  To  this  hour,  no 
man  has  explained  the  unity  of  consciousness  in  con- 
sistency with  the  mechanical  theory  of  life.  [Ap- 
plause.] (See  LOTZE'S  greatest  work,  Mikrokosmus, 
Leipzig,  1869.  Vol.  i.  book  3,  chap.  1.) 

There  is  not  in  Germany  to-day,  except  Hacke1,  a 
single  professor  of  real  eminence  who  teaches  philo- 
sophical materialism.  (See  art.  on  "  Philosophy  and 
Science  in  Germany,"  Princeton  Review,  October,  1876, 
pp.  752-755.)  The  eloquent  Michelet,  the  life-long 
friend  and  disciple  of  Hegel,  lectured  at  Berlin  Uni- 
versity in  the  spring  of  1874  in  defence  of  the  Hege- 
lian philosophy  as  a  system.  Out  of  nearly  three 
thousand  students  he  obtained  only  nine  hearers. 
Helmholtz,  the  renowned  physicist  of  Berlin,  has 
come  out  through  physiology  and  mathematical 
physics  into  metaphysics ;  and-  his  views  in  the  latter 
science  are  pretty  nearly  those  of  Immanuel  Kant. 
Wundt,  the  greatest  of  the  physiologists  of  Heidel- 
berg University,  which  leads  Germany  in  medical 
science,  has  made  for  years  a  profound  study  of  the 
inter-relation  of  matter  and  mind;  and  he  rejects 
materialism  as  in  conflict  with  self-evident,  axiomatic 
truth.  Hermann  Lotze,  now  commonly  regarded  as 
the  greatest  philosopher  of  the  most  intellectual  of 
•the  nations,  and  who  has  left  his  mark  on  every 
scholar  in  Germany  under  forty  years  of  age,  is  every- 
where renowned  for  his  physiological  as  well  as  for 
his  metaphysical  knowledge,  and  as  an  opponent  of 
the  mechanical  theory  of  life. 


158  BIOLOGY. 

I  look  up  to  the  highest  summits  of  science,  and 
I  reverence  properly,  I  hope,  all  that  is  established 
by  the  scientific  method ;  but  when  I  lift  my  gaze  to 
the  very  uppermost  pinnacles  of  the  mount  of  estab- 
lished truth,  I  find  standing  there,  not  Hackel  nor 
Spencer,  but  Hemholtz  of  Berlin,  and  Wundt  of 
Heidelberg,  and  Hermann  Lotze  of  Gottingen,  physi- 
ologists as  well  as  metaphysicians  all ;  and  they,  as 
free  investigators  of  the  relations  between  matter 
and  mind,  are  all  on  their  knees  before  a  living  God. 
[Applause.]  Am  I  to  stand  here  in  Boston,  and  be 
told  that  there  is  no  authority  in  philosophy  beyond 
the  Thames?  Is  the  outlook  of  this  cultured  au- 
dience, in  heaven's  name,  to  be  limited  by  the  North 
Sea  ?  The  English  we  revere ;  but  Professor  Gray 
says  that  there  is  something  in  their  temperament 
that  leads  to  materialism.  England,  green  England ! 
Sour,  sad,  stout  skies,  with  azure  tender  as  heaven, 
omnipresent,  but  not  often  visible  behind  the  clouds, 
sour,  sad,  stout  people,  with  azure  tender  as  heaven, 
and  omnipresent,  but  not  often  visible  behind  the 
vapors.  Such  is  England,  such  the  English.  We 
are  to  extend  our  field  of  vision  to  the  Rhine,  to  the 
Elbe,  to  the  Oder,  to  the  Ural  Mountains ;  and,  when 
we  look  around  the  whole  horizon  of  culture,  the 
truth  is,  that  philosophical  materialism  to-day  is  a 
waning  cause.  It  is  a  crescent  of  the  old  moon; 
and,  in  the  same  sky  where  it  lingers  as  a  ghost,  the 
sun  is  rising,  with  God  behind  it.  [Applause.] 


vm. 

DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?  THE  NERVES  AND 
THE  SOUL. 

THE    FIFTY-THIRD    LECTURE    IN    THE    BOSTON    MONDAY    LEC- 
TURESHIP,  DELIVERED   IN   TREMONT   TEMPLE 
NOV.    20. 


"  IT  needs  not  that  I  swear  by  the  sunset  redness, 
And  by  the  night  and  its  gatherings, 
And  by  the  moon  when  at  her  full, 
That  from  state  to  state  ye  shall  be  surely  carried  onward." 

KORAN. 

"  DIB  Kraft,  die  in  mir  denkt  und  wirkt,  ist  ihrer  Natur  nach 
eine  so  ewige  Kraft,  als  jene,  die  Sonnen  und  Sterne  zuzammen- 
halt.  Ihre  Natur  ist  ewig,  wie  der  Verstand  Gottes,  und  die  Stiit- 
zen  meines  Daseins  —  nicht  meiner  korperlichen  Ercheinung  —  sind 
fest,  als  die  Pfeiler  des  Weltalls."  —  HERDER,  Philosophy  of  History. 


VIII. 

DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?  THE  NERVES 
AND  THE  SOUL. 

PRELUDE  OF  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

SAFE  popular  freedom  consists  of  four  things,  and 
cannot  be  compounded  out  of  any  three  of  the  four 
—  the  diffusion  of  liberty,  the  diffusion  of  intelli- 
gence, the  diffusion  of  property,  and  the  diffusion  of 
conscientiousness.  In  the  latter  work,  the  Church  is 
the  chief  agent ;  and  her  most  important  instrumen- 
tality we  call  the  Sabbath.  Goldwin  Smith  very 
subtly  says  that  it  is  free  religion  and  hallowed  Sun- 
days which  explain  the  average  moral  prosperity  of 
America.  We  have  had  in  the  last  week,  in  Boston, 
a  somewhat  obscure  and  erratic  convention,  advising 
America  to  do  better  than  she  has  thus  far  done  in 
following  the  New-England  ideas  concerning  Sunday. 
Give  America,  from  sea  to  sea,  the  Parisian  Sunday, 
and  in  two  hundred  years  all  our  greatest  cities  will 
be  politically  under  the  heels  of  the  featherheads,  the 
roughs,  the  sneaks,  and  the  money-gripes.  [Ap- 
plause.] Abolish  Sunday,  and  the  social  sanity  it 
fosters,  and,  in  less  than  a  century,  the  conflict  be- 

161 


162  BIOLOGY. 

tween  labor  and  capital  would  issue  here  in  petroleum 
fire-bottles.  Capital  in  our  great  municipalities  is 
fleeced  now  to  the  skin.  Does  it  wish  such  social 
insanity  to  spring  up  as  shall  cut  it  through  the 
cellular  integument  to  the  quick?  If  it  does,  let 
capital  abolish  Sunday.  Working-men  desire  to 
build  co-operation  up  into  a  palace  for  themselves 
and  their  little  ones;  and  God  speed  their  effort 
to  protect  their  own !  But  how  can  co-operation 
succeed  without  the  large  confidence  of  man  in 
man?  and  how  can  that  come  without  the  moral 
culture  given  by  the  right  use  of  Sundays  ?  Co- 
operation fails  because  men  are  not  honest.  How 
are  men  to  be  made  honest  without  a  time  set  apart 
for  religious  culture  ?  That  population  which  habit- 
ually neglects  the  pulpit,  or  its  equivalent,  one  day 
in  seven,  can  ultimately  be  led  by  charlatans,  and 
will  be.  [Applause.] 

I  am  no  fanatic,  I  hope,  as  to  Sunday ;  but  I  look 
abroad  over  the  map  of  popular  freedom  in  the  world, 
and  it  does  not  seem  to  me  accidental  that  Switzer- 
land, Scotland,  England,  and  the  United  States,  the 
countries  which  best  observe  Sunday,  constitute 
almost  the  entire  map  of  safe  popular  government. 

Sabbath  is  a  day  of  religious  culture  and  cheerful 
rest.  Its  biblical  warrant  is  found  in  the  re-affirma- 
tion by  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  of  the  whole  moral 
•spirit  of  the  Decalogue.  I  affirm,  without  fear  of 
successful  contradiction  by  any  cultured  thought, 
that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  re-affirms  the  moral 
spirit  of  the  Decalogue,  and  in  that  re-affirmation 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.       163 

perpetuates  the  direction  to  hallow  one-seventh 
portion  of  our  time :  it  matters  very  little  which 
seventh.  "  Forsake  not  the  assembling  of  yourselves 
together,"  is  apostolic  precept,  as  it  was  apostolic 
example.  No  doubt  small  critics  may  show  that  the 
apostles  and  our  Lord  did  works  of  necessity  and 
mercy  on  the  Sabbath  ;  and  so  do  we,  and  so  will  we 
to  the  end  of  time.  But  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
re-affirms  your  first,  your  second,  your  third,  your 
fifth,  sixth,  seventh,  eighth,  ninth,  and  tenth  com- 
mandments. How  are  you  to  show  that  it  does  not 
re-affirm  the  fourth  in  spirit  ?  "  Not  one  jot  or  tittle 
shall  ever  pass  from  the  law  till  all  be  fulfilled." 

It  is  fifteen  hundred  years  now  since  Constantine 
put  into  execution  the  law  bringing  one  day  in  seven 
an  unwonted  hush  on  all  industry  in  the  Roman 
dominion.  Here  we  are  ten  centuries  off  from  the 
time  when  Christianity  closed  her  chief  political 
struggles.  Here  is  a  republic  built  chiefly  by  Chris- 
tianity, and  perfectly  free,  and  governing  more  square 
miles  than  ever  Caesar  ruled  over.  This  nation  calls 
peace  to  her  industries  one  day  in  seven.  She  sends 
nine  millions  of  her  population,  one  in  five,  to  a  World's 
Fair,  and  shuts  the  door  every  Sunday.  I  know  what 
report  says  about  the  evasions  and  hypocrisy  of  the 
Centennial  Commission  in  admitting  persons  surrep- 
.titiously  into  the  buildings  on  the  Sabbath  against 
the  vote  to  close  the  grounds  on  that  day.  If  the 
report  is  correct,  the  Centennial  Commission  ought 
to  have  public  rebuke,  unless  it  can  make  adequate 
explanation. 


164  BIOLOGY. 

I  am  glad  to  see  that  even  this  erratic  convention, 
dazzled  out  of  sight  by  the  sound  ideas  and  majestic 
words  of  the  Episcopal  congress,  was  wise  enough  to 
proclaim  that  it  did  not  wish  to  introduce  into 
America  the  European  Sunday. 

Hallam  says  that  European  despotic  rulers  have 
cultivated,  as  Charles  II.  did  in  the  day  of  the  "  Book 
of  Sports,"  a  love  of  pastime  on  Sabbaths,  in  order 
that  their  people  might  be  more  quiet  undei  political 
distresses.  "  A  holiday  Sabbath  is  the  ally  of  des- 
potism." Wherever  the  Romish  or  Parisian  Sunday 
has  prevailed  for  generations,  it  has  made  the  whole 
lives  of  peasant  populations  a  prolonged  childhood. 

America,  I  venture  to  say,  is  satisfied  with  the  rec- 
ord of  the  Sabbaths  in  her  World's  Exhibition.  This 
convention  seemed  to  think,  however,  that  the  bur- 
den of  a  great  reform  was  laid  upon  its  shoulders.  It 
apparently  thought  its  thin  meetings  the  representa- 
tion of  a  large  constituency.  Men  are  strangely  full 
of  company  sometimes,  when  before  the  mirrors  of 
high  self-appre'ciation.  Sidney  Smith,  calling  on  a 
nobleman,  passed  through  a  room  full  of  mirrors, 
which  showed  him  several  images  of  his  own  form 
approaching  from  many  directions.  He  was  wholly 
alone  ;  but  he  was  overheard  to  say,  "  A  meeting  of 
the  clergy,  I  see."  [Laughter  and  applause.] 

THE   LECTURE. 

Suppose  that  the  musician  at  your  organ  yonder 
has  on  his  finger  Gyges'  ring,  which  according  to 
the  Greek  mythology,  as  you  remember,  made  the 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.       165 

wearer  invisible.  It  is  entirely  clear,  is  it  not,  that 
if  we  were  to  approach  and  study  that  instrument 
while  it  is  in  action  under  the  fingers  of  this  invisible 
musician,  we  should  find  in  it  no  authority  for  attrib- 
uting the  anthem  proceeding  from  the  organ  to  the 
inert  matter  composing  the  organ  ?  We  should  have, 
on  the  contrary,  incontrovertible  evidence  in  the  very 
structure  of  the  instrument  that  it  was  made  to  be 
operated  upon  from  without.  If  it  is  to  give  forth 
melody,  it  must  be  moved  by  something  not  itself. 
It  is  composed  of  wood  and  metal  and  ivory,  all  of 
which,  with  all  their  complicated  mechanical  arrange- 
ments, are  inert,  and,  if  taken  alone,  are  wholly  val- 
ueless in  the  production  of  music. 

In  one  portion  of  the  organ  we  have  a  keyboard, 
and,  in  the  case  supposed,  we  look  on  the  very  intri- 
cate combinations  and  motions  in  the  keys,  and  see  no 
cause  for  the  movements.  But  we  know,  if  we  are 
sane,  that  every  change  must  have  an  adequate  cause. 
We  find  a  perfect  correspondence  between  the  mo- 
tions of  the  keys  and  the  pulsations  of  the  melody 
rising  and  falling  in  this  temple.  But  this  parallelism 
is  not  identity.  The  keys  in  motion  are  not  the 
music.  Motions  and  forces  are  not  the  same. 

Let,  now,  some  inquirer  of  narrow  mental  horizon, 
and  confusing  —  as  so  much  current  discussion  does 
—  motions  with  forces,  assert  that  these  intelligent 
movements  of  the  keys  —  which,  of  course,  must 
have  behind  them  forces  containing  intelligence  — 
are  the  sole  cause  of  the  anthem.  Let  him  insist  on 
a  new  definition  of  ivory.  Let  him  affirm  'that  the 


166  BIOLOGY. 

matter  composing  these  keys  has  in  it  the  power  and 
potency  of  all  music,  from  the  simplest  air  up  to  Bee 
thoven's  Fifth  Symphony.  Let  him  go  behind  the 
organ,  and  elaborately  study  the  very  powerful  and 
purely  physical  forces  at  work  in  the  interior  of  the 
instrument.  Let  him  show,  learnedly  and  laborious- 
ly, that  currents  of  air  thrown  into  the  pipes  pro- 
duce, according  to  merely  mechanical  principles,  the 
wholly  physical  concussions  in  the  molecular  parti- 
cles of  the  atmosphere  which  are  concerned  in  the 
music.  As  no  merely  physical  science,  by  any  test 
known  to  man,  can  detect  the  presence  of  the  musi- 
cian, let  this  observer  assert  that  there  is  no  musician 
independent  of  the  instrument,  and  that  the  anthem 
proceeds  wholly  from  the  mechanism  of  the  organ, 
acted  upon  by  exclusively  physical  stimulation  from 
without.  Let  him  assert  that  the  hypothesis  of  an 
invisible  musician  is  as  absurd  as  the  attribution  of 
aquosity  to  water,  or  of  horologity  to  a  clock.  Ac- 
cording to  this  supposed  materialistic  observer  of  the 
organ,  there  is  nothing  in  the  anthem  which  is  not 
wholly  the  result  of  the  mechanism  of  the  organ  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  the  merely  physical  forces  sup- 
plied to  it  by  the  organ-bellows  on  the  other.  Let 
this  naturalistic  observer  have  a  great  name  —  among 
men  of  his  own  opinions. 

Sho^d  we  be  puzzled  by  these  confident  asser- 
tions ?  Not  if  we  held  fast  to  the  Ariadne  clew  of 
the  self-evident,  axiomatic  truth,  that  every  change 
must  have  an  adequate  cause.  We  should  say  that 
this  instrument,  being  made  wholly  of  matter,  is 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.       167 

inert.  We  should  assert,  in  the  name  of  established 
science,  the  incontrovertible  inertness  of  all  parts  of 
the  organ  taken  alone.  We  should  say  that  the 
motion  of  rough  currents  of  air  through  it  does  not 
and  can  not  account  for  the  intricate  and  ravishing 
melody  which  captivates  our  souls  by  its  intelligence, 
and  must  have  behind  it  a  soul.  Mere  wood,  metal, 
and  ivory  cannot  utter  Beethoven's  spirit.  Perhaps 
the  air,  by  the  slight  pressure  of  intelligence  on  the 
keys,  can  be  ruled  into  melody,  and  made  to  give  all 
its  majestic  force  to  the  intelligent  weaving  of  the 
anthem.  But  in  your  organ,  as  elsewhere,  involution 
and  evolution  are  a  fixed  equation.  You  bring  out  of 
it  only  what  you  put  in.  Your  musical  instruments 
will  throw  no  Beethoven  into  the  air,  unless  there  is 
a  Beethoven  at  the  keys. 

Such,  my  friends,  is  the  stern  outline  of  the  inef- 
faceable contrast  between  the  body  and  the  soul.  The 
distinction  between  matter  and  mind  is  a  gulf  as  vast 
and  impassable  in  physics  as  in  metaphysics.  The 
soul  wears  Gyges'  ring.  It  is,  indeed,  invisible  to 
the  microscope,  and  intangible  to  the  scalpel.  But 
there  are  mysterious  molecular  motions  in  the  ner- 
vous substance  of  the  brain.  Neural  tremors  fill  the 
keyboard  of  the  body.  Undoubtedly  there  is  a  per- 
fect correspondence  between  these  tremors  arid  the 
anthems  of  thought  and  emotion,  in  your  Homer, 
your  Demosthenes,  your  Caesar,  your  Milton,  you* 
Shakspeare.  But  the  parallelism  is  not  identity. 
Motions  and  forces  are  not  the  same.  The  keys  in 
motion  are  not  the  music.  Physical  forces  play 


168  BIOLOGY. 

through  the  brain ;  but  they  do  not  sing,  unless  modu- 
lated by  the  ineffable  touches  of  the  keys.  Just  as 
surely  as  you,  from  the  structure  of  an  organ,  may 
infer  the  necessity  of  a  wholly  exterior  agent  to  move 
it,  so,  from  the  structure  of  the  nervous  system,  we 
must  infer  the  necessity  of  a  wholly  external  agent 
to  set  it  in  action.  [Applause.] 

In  what  I  am  about  to  put  before  you  I  have  the 
authority  of  Frey,  of  Strieker,  of  Ranke,  of  Kolli 
ker,  of  Carpenter,  of  Beale,  of  Dalton,  and  of 
Draper. 

1.  In  the  nervous  mechanism  there  are  two  kinds 
of  fibres,  called  by  physiologists  the  automatic  arcs, 
and  the  influential  arcs. 

We  have  here  a  representation  of  the  simplest 
kind  of  nervous  fibre  [illustrating  by  a  figure  upon 
the  blackboard],  —  the  pendent  curve  of  a  nervous 
thread,  one  end  in  contact  with  the  external  surface 
of  the  body,  and  the  other  connected  with  this  mus- 
cular tissue.  If  you  please,  the  bioplasts  weave  all 
that.  'Perfectly  simple  as  the  structure  looks,  it  is  a 
miracle.  Can  you  make  any  thing  like  it?  Here  is 
your  muscular  fibre,  which  has  the  peculiar  quality 
of  contracting  under  nervous  stimulus.  Here  is 
your  nervous  cord,  which  transmits  strange  influ- 
ences that  cause  contraction  when  they  are  received 
upon  this  muscular  tissue.  One  test  by  which  true 
is  to  be  distinguished  from  false  science  is,  that  the 
former  does,  and  that  the  latter  does  not,  concern 
itself  carefully  with  beginnings.  Remember,  that, 
even  in  this  automatic  nerve,  motions  and  forces  are 


THE  NERVES   AND  THE  SOUL.  169 

not  the  same.  Muscular  contraction  is  an  effect  of 
physical  forces  only  as  these  act  on  mechanism 
arranged  before  the  forces  themselves  came  into  play. 
Your  miraculous  brain  is  first  woven  by  your  bio- 
plasts. You  say  mind  is  the  result  of  the  mechanism 
of  the  brain ;  but  the  mechanism  of  the  brain  is  the 
direct  product  of  bioplasmic  action. 

Of  course,  I  am  ready  to  admit,  that,  if  you  touch  a 
portion  of  this  automatic  nervous  arc  with  a  galvanic 
current,  you  will  produce  contraction  there  in  the 
attached  muscle.  Electrical  stimulation  of  such  a 
nerve  may  produce  a  contraction  of  the  muscle  even 
after  the  man  is  dead.  But  what  wove  that  nerve  ? 
What  wove  that  contractile  tissue  ? 

Beyond  this  simplest  structure,  the  next  higher  in 
the  development  of  the  nervous  system  is  what  is 
called  the  cellated  nervous  arc.  We  see  it  here,  a 
pendent  curve  as  before  ;  but  now  with  a  very  large 
bead,  or  mass  of  nervous  matter  with  bioplasts  in  the 
middle  of  it,  is  hanging  at  this  point.  It  is  yet  true 
that  irritation  here  produces  contraction  there. 
What  influence,  then,  has  this  nervous  centre  upon 
the  transmission  of  this  nervous  force?  The  books 
say  that  there  is  no  proof  that  the  nervous  influence 
is  changed  in  quality  by  its  passage  through  one  of 
these  simplest  ganglia.  You  may  single  out  a  nerve 
arc  of  that  primitive  style,  and  irritate  it  by  an  elec- 
tric current  on  one  side  of  this  large  bead  or  ganglion, 
and  you  will  produce  contraction  in  the  muscle  just 
as  before.  You  irritate  this  side  beyond  the  great 
bead,  and  you  produce  contraction. 


170  BIOLOGY. 

But  a  third  step  in  the  development  of  the  nervous 
system  does  introduce  a  change.  Many  of  these 
nerve-centres  are  tied  up  to  other  nerve-centres 
[illustrating  by  a  figure  in  which  the  ganglion  of  the 
nerve-arc  was  connected  with  another  ganglion]  ; 
and  in  a  nerve  with  its  ganglion  connected  in  that 
style  with  another  ganglion,  a  portion  of  the  influ- 
ence transmitted  through  this  complex  nervous  mass 
is  thrown  off  into  this  other  complex  nervous  mass. 
Your  physiological  authorities  call  the  latter  a  register- 
ing ganglion.  This  transmission  of  nervous  influence 
into  the  registering  complex  of  nervous  matter  may 
be  very  inadequately  illustrated,  Professor  Draper  says, 
by  a  faucet  with  three  stops  (DRAPER,  PROFESSOR 
J.  W.,  Human  Physiology,  p.  380),  or  by  a  mirror 
with  a  portion  of  the  isinglass  taken  off  the  back. 
The  light  is  in  part  reflected  and  in  part  transmitted. 
Thus  this  registering  mass  of  nervous  matter  retains 
a  portion  of  the  force  sent  through  this  nervous  arc  ; 
and,  in  an  animal  possessing  this  nervous  mechanism, 
there  will  be  memory,  or  something  equivalent  to  it. 

Thus  far  we  have  seen  only  what  is  called  the 
automatic  nervous  mechanism.  Please  fix  in  your 
minds,  gentlemen,  the  simplicity  of  this  structure, 
and,  when  a  more  complicated  mechanism  is  outlined 
in  connection  with  this,  keep  vividly  before  your 
minds  the  contrast  between  the  two. 

All  established  science  is  agreed  that  there  are 
automatic  and  also  influential  arcs  in  the  nervous 
system,  and  that  the  contrast  between  the  two  things 
is  as  marked  as  that  between  their  accepted  scientific 
names. 


THE  NERVES   AND   THE   SOUL.  171 

In  the  higher  animals  there  is  added  to  the  simpler 
automatic  part  of  the  nervous  system  a  far  more  in- 
tricate structure,  called  the  influential  nervous  mech- 
anism. Professor  Draper  represents  the  contrast 
between  the  automatic  and  the  influential  part  of  the 
nervous  system  by  this  ideal  figure  (DRAPER, 
Human  Physiology,  p.  282),  which  I  here  reproduce 
line  for  line.  It  is  substantially  a  lower  curve  and 
an  upper  curve,  —  the  one  automatic,  the  other  influ- 
ential, and  the  two  bound  together  by  nervous 
threads.  In  all  physiology,  outside  the  supreme 
topic  of  bioplasm,  I  know  nothing  which  is  so  sug- 
gestive as  this  contrast  between  the  automatic  and 
the  influential  nerve-arcs.  Here,  assuredly,  is  a 
majestic  mount  of  vision  upon  which  the  philosophy 
of  the  relations  between  body  and  soul,  matter  and 
mind,  must  often  pace  to  and  fro. 

2.  Plants  and  many  animals  possess  only  the  auto- 
matic arcs. 

3.  Such   organizations   as  possess   only  the   auto- 
matic arcs  are  automata ;    and,  although  they  have 
life,  they  cannot,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  be 
said  to  possess   souls  including  free-will   and   con- 
science. 

The  contrast  between  the  influential  and  the  au- 
tomatic is  that  between  freedom  and  necessity.  It 
is  that  between  man,  with  the  power  of  choice,  and 
your  poor  honey-bee,  who  is  supposed  to  work  as  an 
automaton.  The  bee  has  not  the  influential  arc  :  it 
has  only  the  automatic  nerves.  Accordingly,  by  in- 
stinct it  has  built  its  cell  in  the  same  way  age  after 


172  BIOLOGY. 

age.  Two  bses  under  precisely  the  same  circum- 
stances will  do  precisely  the  same  things. 

But  this  upper  arc,  which  is  possessed  by  man,  is 
called  influential,  and  not  automatic,  because  it  is  the 
seat  of  activities  of  a  free  sort.  This  is  the  key- 
board of  your  invisible  musician :  this  is  the  white 
ivory  shaped  by  no  mortal  fingers,  and  on  which  life 
plays.  [Applause.] 

Gentlemen,  I  have  been  accused  of  being  rhetori- 
cal ;  but  a  man  who  wishes  to  dazzle  by  rhetoric  does 
not  talk  in  twenty-eighthlies  and  forty-ninthlies,  as 
I  have  sometimes  done.  Any  one,  however,  who 
wishes  to  convince  by  cool  precision,  very  naturally 
employs  numerals.  You  will  allow  me,  therefore,  to 
number  the  points  of  a  discussion,  which  must  be 
crowded,  and  which  would  nevertheless  be  clear. 

Just  here  expose  themselves  in  more  than  glimpses 
the  fascinating  questions  as  to  the  difference  between 
instinct  and  reason,  and  as  to  the  immortality  of 
instinct.  Animals  that  possess  only  the  automatic 
nerve-arcs  have  only  instinct  for  their  guidance : 
they  have  life,  but  not  free-wills  and  consciences. 
Later  in  this  course  of  lectures,  I  shall  discuss  the 
question,  whether,  after  death,  there  is  a  survival  of 
the  immaterial  principle  in  animals  that  are  mere 
automata.  Here  and  now  I  emphasize  only  this 
broad  distinction  between  the  influential  and  auto- 
matic nerve-arcs,  a  physical  fact,  without  any  haze 
either  in'  its  margin  or  its  contents.  God  material- 
izes. In  the  universe  of  forms,  as  well  as  in  that  of 
forces,  the  Divine  language  has  no  empty  syllable. 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.       173 

Perhaps  this  invisible  musician,  with  Gyges'  ring  on 
his  finger,  has  not  been  left  without  a  witness  of 
himself  in  the  whitish-gray  keyboard  of  the  human 
organ.  Perhaps  the  contrast  between  the  automatic 
and"  influential  nerve-arcs  is  just  as  important  a  fact 
in  the  instrument  God  has  made  as  the  distinction 
between  your  musician  and  the  man  who  moves  the 
bellows  behind  the  organ  is  in  the  instrument  man 
has  made.  Among  the  automatic  and  influential 
nerve-arcs,  all  philosophy  ought  to  stand  listening 
with  hushed  breath. 

4.  Man  possesses  in  abundance  both  the  automatic 
and  influential  arcs. 

5.  Whatever  animal  possesses  the  influential  arcs 
has  a  depository,  magazine,  or  reservoir  of  force  not 
dependent  on  external  impressions. 

Aristotle  noticed  with  great  keenness  of  interest 
the  fact  that  men  awake  before  they  open  their  eyes. 
Professor  Bain  regards  that  circumstance,  with  which 
we  are  all  familiar,  as  one  out  of  thousands  of  proofs 
that  external  irritation  is  not  necessary  always  to 
internal  activity. 

By  the  way,  Aristotle  was  accustomed  to  assert 
that  the  most  interesting  portion  of  human  knowl- 
edge is  that  which  refers  to  what  he  called  the  ani- 
mating principle  of  physical  organisms.  We  are 
beginning  to  think,  I  hope,  that  what  is  called  bio- 
plasm is  the  most  interesting  by  far  of  all  the  objects 
know  to  physical  science.  That,  in  substance,  is  an 
opinion  two  thousand  years  old.  Aristotle  defined 
the  animating  principle  as  the  cause  offoxmj/n  organ- 


174  BIOLOGY. 

isms  (Ariutotle  de  Anima,  passim').  This  to  him  was 
the  most  alluring  of  all  the  topics  open  to  Greek 
philosophy.  He  said  often,  that,  if  we  ought  to*  be 
interested  in  a  theme  in  proportion  to  its  dignity, 
certainly  nothing  could  be  more  entrancing  than  the 
study  of  the  animating  principle. 

6.  In  man  the  influential  arc  is  the  seat  of  Intel- 
lect, free-will,  and  conscience. 

7.  But,  as  man  possesses  the  automatic  arc  also, 
many  of  his  actions  are  automatic. 

We  must  expect  to  find  in  some  animals  which 
have  a  much  more  perfect  automatic  nervous  mecha- 
nism than  man,  instincts,  and,  apparently,  sponta- 
neous movements,  of  the  most  marvellous  kinds.  I 
am  not  asserting  that  man  is  not  in  some  respects  an 
automaton ;  but  he  is  by  no  means  as  good  a  one  as 
might  be  chosen  if  the  power  of  automatic  nervous 
action  is  to  be  shown.  Professor  Huxley  went  before 
a  great  audience  at  the  Belfast  meeting  of  the  Brit- 
ish Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  and 
took  a  headless  frog,  and  put  it  on  the  back  of  his 
hand,  and  then  turned  his  hand  slowly  over ;  and  the 
frog  kept  his  place  till  the  hand  had  been  reversed, 
and  the  frog  stood  in  the  palm.  (HUXLEY'S  Ad- 
dress on  the  Question,  Are  Animals  Automata .?)  Now, 
said  Professor  Huxley,  is  there  any  will  concerned  in 
that  ?  Is  not  this  the  result  of  purely  physical  stim- 
ulation of  the  frog's  nerves  ?  Have  we  not  here  an 
automaton?.  He  meant  to  puzzle  the  world  about 
the  freedom  of  the  human  soul.  But  the  bioplasts 
wove  that  frog  too.  After  the  automatic  mechanism 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.       175 

is  woven,  such  results  are  very  well  known  to  follow 
the  action  of  the  merely  automatic  part  of  the  ner- 
vous system.  A  frog  with  his  head  cut  off  you  may 
put  on  the  back  of  your  hand,  and  you  may  turn  the 
hand  over,  and  the  frog  will  keep  its  place  meanwhile 
without  assistance,  and  stand  on  your  palm.  Of 
course,  there  is  no  action  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres 
there.  The  irritation  of  the  feet  has  such  an  effect 
as  to  cause  the  muscles  to  enable  them  to  cling  to 
their  support ;  just  as,  while  the  perching  bird  sleeps^ 
the  perch  itself  stimulates  to  action  the  muscles  that 
cause  it  to  be  clasped  by  the  bird's  feet.  Will  you 
please  notice  that  you  have  no  right  to  be  puzzled  by 
any  number  of  facts  like  these,  and  that  all  there  is 
in  Huxley's  famous  experiment  is  admitted  truth 
concerning  the  automatic  part  of  the  nervous  system, 
and  that  the  puzzle  consists  in  putting  that  fragment 
for  the  whole  ? 

8.  As  in  man,  the   automatic  and  the  influential 
nervous  arcs  are   blended  together  by  innumerable 
commissures,  and  are   yet  perfectly  distinguishable 
by  study,  so  the  automatic  and  the  free  activities  of 
man  are,  in  experience,  most  intricately  blended  to- 
gether, and  yet  are  perfectly  distinguishable  by  care- 
ful attention. 

9.  Sometimes  the  former  may  become  so  powerful 
as  to  overcome  the  latter ;  and  sometimes  the  latter 
may  overcome  the  former. 

10.  The  power  of  habit,  and,  to  a  great  extent, 
that  of  emotion,  depends  on  the  action  of  the  auto- 
matic arcs. 


176  BIOLOGY. 

Your  classical  orator  of  Boston  stands  upon  some 
transfigured  platform,  and  the  warp  and  woof  of  his 
unpremeditated  language  fall  from  the  loom  of  his 
mind,  every  figure  perfect.  You  hold  up  in  print 
the  next  morning  his  speech  between  your  eyes  and 
the  merciless  sunlight,  and  there  is  no  flaw  in  the 
weaving.  Your  Phillips,  your  Everett,  your  Sum- 
ner,  your  Webster,  have  scarred  into  their  nervous 
systems  good  literary  habits.  You  know  very  well 
that  a  scar  will  not  wash  out,  or  grow  out.  Abso- 
lutely there  is  no  doubt  about  this.  But  how  vast 
and  fathomlessly  practical  are  the  applications  of  the 
simple  truth  that  scars  are  ineraseable  !  A  two-edged 
sword  this,  and  of  keener  than  Damascus  steel.  Your 
dull  inebriate,  who  scars  his  brain  by  the  habit  of 
intemperance,  thinks,  that,  after  his  reformation,  his 
nervous  system  will  slowly  recover  all  the  soundness 
it  once  had.  But  in  your  finger  a  scar  will  not  grow 
out;  and  on  your  brain  a  scar  will  not  grow  out. 
Here  are  scars  which  were  made  when  my  fingers 
were  too  young  to  be  trusted  with  edged  tools  ;  but, 
although  the  particles  of  my  body  have  been  changed 
many  times  since  then,  the  scars  are  here,  reproduced 
with  the  reproduction  of  the  particles  of  the  body. 
Once  in  seven  years  we  have  a  new  body,  the  books 
used  to  say :  once  in  twelve  months,  as  they  say  now, 
the  particles  of  our  physical  system  are  changed. 
Scars,  however,  are  absolutely  unchangeable  in  the 
changing  flesh.  We  carry  into  our  graves  the  marks 
of  boyhood's  sports  ;  and  this  is  as  true,  if  you  please, 
of  the  sports  that  scar  the  brain  as  of  those  that  gash 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.       177 

the  fingers.  The  most  searching  blessing  on  good 
habrts,  the  most  penetrating  curse  on  bad,  is  found 
in  the  one  fact,  that  the  automatic  nervous  mecha- 
nism is  such,  that  when  a  habit,  good  or  bad,  is 
scarred  into  the  nerves  and  brain,  the  soul  pours 
forth  the  result  of  the  habit  almost  spontaneously. 

The  influential  nerve-arcs  can,  indeed,  hold  back 
the  activity  of  the  automatic  arcs.  "  The  will  counts 
for  something  as  a  cause,"  says  Huxley  himself. 
Dr.  Carpenter  explicitly  teaches,  that  the  influential 
nerve-arcs  may  resist,  "  keep  in  check  and  modify  " 
the  action  of  the  automatic  nervous  mechanism. 
(CARPENTER,  Physiology,  eighth  edition,  1875,  p. 
730.  See,  also,  his  Mental  Physiology,  passim.') 

The  power  of  volition  resides  in  the  influential 
arcs.  But  even  a  man  is  so  far  an  automaton,  that, 
if  he  is  an  orator,  he  will  scar  himself  with  the  com- 
plete oratorical  habit,  and  may  speak,  as  the  bird 
sings,  without  effort.  You  wonder  at  the  precision, 
fluency,  and  force  of  the  language  of  your  Burke  or 
your  Chatham.  But  the  automatic  nerve-scars  rep- 
resenting good  literary  habits  may  have  been  in  the 
mother,  or  in  both  parents,  or  in  five  generations. 
Certainly  the  habit  of  good  extemporaneous  speech 
has  been  cultivated  through  more  than  a  quarter  of 
a  century  by  your  Chatham  and  your  Burke.  It  is 
now  scarred  deeply  into  the  nerves ;  and  scars  do 
not  grow  out.  And  when,  before  any  audience,  the 
warp  and  woof  of  eloquent  speech  are  needed,  the 
automatic  action  of  good  habit  sets  its  power  behind 
the  will  of  the  orator ;  and  nearly  all  that  is  required 


178  BIOLOGY. 

is,  that  some  great  thought  and  passion  should  throw 
the  shuttles  once,  and  then  the  figured,  firm  web  flows 
spontaneously  from  the  perfect  loom.  [Applause.] 
But  just  so,  my  friends,  your  tendency  or  mine  to 
slovenly  speech,  our  fearfully  unsesthetic  ways,  and 
even  the  inebriate's  thirst,  or  the  sensualist's  leprous 
thoughts,  scar  the  nervous  system  in  its  automatic 
arc.  When  you,  thus  scarred  by  habit,  and  it  may 
be,  alas !  by  inheritance,  pass  the  place  of  tempta- 
tion, you  are  seized,  you  know  not  with  what  power : 
you  feel  that  there  is  necessity  upon  you ;  and  that 
mystery  is  simply  the  fact  that  scars  are  ineraseable. 
You  have  scarred  your  nervous  system  with  an  evil 
habit ;  and  now  this  terrific  power  of  the  automatic 
mechanism  stands  behind  your  will.  Your  musician 
yonder,  under  the  same  automatic  law,  derives  power 
from  the  very  source  from  which  you  derive  weak- 
ness. He  calls  forth  melodj^,  spray  after  spray  of 
the  fountain  of  the  anthem  ascending  and  falling, 
with  raptures  all  in  rhythm ;  and  we  are  lifted  by  it 
to  the  azure ;  we  are  ennobled  by  it  mysteriously : 
but  your  musician  is  making  no  effort.  So  has  habit 
ingrained  his  nervous  mechanism,  that  he  plays  as 
the  bird  sings.  Professor  Huxley  states,  that  once  an 
old  soldier,  who  had  been  accustomed  all  his  life  tc 
come  to  a  perfectly  erect  attitude  at  the  word  "  atten 
tion,"  was  carrying  home  his  dinner  on  a  Londor 
street,  when  a  comrade  who  desired  sport  called  out 
to  him  from  the  other  side  of  the  way,  "  Attention !  " 
Instantly  the  inattentive  soldier  came  into  the  up- 
right .attitude,  and  dropped  his  dinner  in  the  street. 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.        179 

Now,  Professor  Huxley  says,  that,  although  the  de- 
tails of  that  anecdote  may  not  be  all  correct,  they 
might  be,  and  that  they  might  be  because  of  the 
power  of  the  automatic  action  of  the  nervous  system. 
So  you,  holding  }^our  families'  or  your  own  pure  char- 
acter in  your  arms ;  you,  citizens  of  Boston,  holding 
your  honor  in  this  city  in  your  bosoms,  are  some 
day  tempted  sorcerously  by  intemperance  or  passion, 
by  the  greed  and  fraud  of  crooked  trade  or  politics, 
or  by  any  of  the  bad  impulses  that  habit  or  inherit- 
ance has  woven  into  your  nerves;  and  suddenly, 
under  automatic  trance,  which  might  yet  have  been 
escaped  by  force  of  will,  the  things  dearest  to  you 
are  dropped  by  you  in  the  draggled  street  of  your 
private  or  public  life  at  the  sudden  word  "  Atten- 
tion "  from  the  black  angel.  [Applause.] 

11.  The  action  of  the  influential  arcs  is  not  to  be 
regarded  as  a  creation  of  force,  but  rather  as  the 
optional  opening  of  a  reservoir  of  force,  given  with 
the  gift  of  life  to  each  organization  that  possesses 
free-will.  • 

I  touch  here  upon  a  great  mystery,  and  am  quite 
aware  of  the  nature  of  the  ground  over  which  I  pass ; 
but  you  will  notice  that  this  proposition  does  not  go 
as  far  as  Sir  John  Herschel  does,  when  he  asserts 
that  the  soul  is,  to  a  small  extent,  a  real  creative  force. 
Let  us  call  it,  rather,  a  power-  delegated  for  optional 
use.  All  the  power  we  have  is  certainly  delegated 
power.  We  have  received  it  all  from  Almighty  God. 
His  force  is  all  the  force  there  is  in  the  universe, 
intellectual  or  physical.  [Applause.] 


180  BIOLOGY. 

12.  This  fast,  that  free-will  is  exercised  through 
the  influential  arcs  of  the  nervous  system,  does  not, 
therefore,  necessarily  contradict  the  law  of  the  per- 
sistence of  force. 

13.  In  both  the  automatic  and  the  influential  arc 
there  is  a  perfect  adaptation  of  the  structure  to  the 
agent  that  is  to  set  it  in  activity. 

Sometimes,  at  the  end  of  the  automatic  arc,  you 
have  an  eye,  with  its  marvellous  lenses,  or  an  ear, 
which  Professor  Tyndall  calls  "  a  harp  of  three  thou- 
sand strings." 

14.  The  eye  is  the  outer  portion  of  the  automatic 
arc  concerned  in  vision ;  and  all  parts  of  the  eye  are 
adapted  in  their  structure  to  a  wholly  external  agent, 
—  light. 

15.  The  ear  is  the  outer  portion  of  the  automatic 
arc  concerned  in  hearing ;  and  it  is  adapted  perfectly 
to  an  external  agent,  —  sound. 

16.  The  nerves  of  smell  are  connected  with  a  struc- 
ture adapted  to  a  wholly  external  agent,  —  odor. 

17.  The  tongue  is  adapted  in  the  same  way  to  a 
wholly  external  agent,  —  flavor. 

18.  Many  problems  in  biology  are  susceptible  of  an 
inverse  solution :   as,  for  example,  given  the  nature 
of  light  to  determine,  what  must  be  the  structure  of 
the  organ  of  vision ;  or,  given  the  structure  of  the 
eye  to  determine  what  is  the  nature  of  light. 

19.  So,  in  relation  to  the  agent  which  moves  the 
influential  arcs,  we  have  the   problem :    Given  the 
structure  of  the  brain  to  determine  the  nature  of 
the  agent  which  sets  it  in  action. 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.       181 

20.  There  is  an  absolute  analogy  in  construction 
between  the  elementary  arrangement  of  the  fibres 
of  the  brain  and  those  of  any  other  nervous  arc. 

21.  The  influential,  as  well  as  the  automatic  part 
of  the  nervous  system,  has  its  centripetal  and  centri- 
fugal fibres,  which  converge  to  sensory  ganglia,  or 
nervous  centres. 

22.  Just  as  the  automatic  arcs  in  man's  nervous 
system   have   vesicular    material   at  their    external 
extremities  in  the  organs  of  the  senses,  so  the  influ- 
ential have  vesicular  material  at  their  external  ex- 
tremities in  the  convolutions  of  the  brain. 

23.  But  we  know  beyond  question  that  the  auto- 
matic nerve-arcs  can  display  no  phenomena  of  them- 
selves :  they  all  require  an  external  agent  to  set  them 
in  motion. 

24.  The   optical   apparatus   is   inert  without  the 
influences  of  light ;  the  auditory  inert  without  sound. 
The  organs  of  taste  and  smell,  and  the  nerves  con- 
nected with  them,  are  inert  and  without  value,  except 
under  the  influences  of  wholly  external  agents. 

25.  Established  science  asserts  the  absolute  inert- 
ness of  the  cerebral  structure  in  itself ;  or  the  entire 
incapacity  of  the  influential  as  well  as  of  the  auto- 
matic nerve-arcs  to  initiate  their  own  activities. 

26.  As,  therefore,  from  the  structure  of  the  eye, 
we  may  infer  the   existence   of  a  wholly  external 
agent,  light,  or  from  that  of  the  ear,  the  existence 
of  a  wholly  external  agent,  sound,  so,  because  of  the 
absolute  inertness  of  the  cerebral  structure  in  itself, 
we  must  attribute  its  activities  to  an  agent  as  external 


182  BIOLOGY. 

to  it  as  sound  is  to  the  ear,  or  light  to  the  eye. 
[Applause.] 

27.  That  agent  is  invisible  to  the  external  vision, 
and  intangible  to  external  touch. 

28.  It  is  positively  known  to  consciousness,  or  the 
internal  vision  and  touch. 

29.  That  agent  is  the  soul. 

30.  As  the  dissolution  of  the  eye  does  not  destroy 
the  light,  the  external  agent  which  acts  upon  it ;  and 
as  the  dissolution  of  the  ear  does  not  destroy  the 
pulsations  of  air,  the  external  agent  which  acts  upon 
it ;  so  the  dissolution  of  the  brain  does  not  destroy 
the  soul,  the  external  agent  which  sets  it  in  motion. 
[Applause.] 

Gentlemen,  there  is  more  than  one  soul  here 
besides  mine  sad  with  unspeakable  bereavement. 
There  are  eyes  here  besides  mine  which  weary  the 
heavens  with  beseeching  glances  for  one  vision  of 
faces  snatched  from  us  in  fiery  chariots  of  pain.  Is 
death  the  breaking  of  a  flask  in  the  sea  ?  Is  there 
for  me  no  more  personal  immortality  than  for  a 
consumed  candle  ?  Cool  precision,  gentlemen,  not 
rhetoric;  even  at^the  edge  of  the  tomb,  cool  pre- 
cision ! 

I  open  Professor  Draper,  and  read,  "  If  the  optical 
apparatus  be  inert,  and  without  value  save  under  the 
influence  of  light ;  if  the  auditory  apparatus  yields 
no  result  save  under  the  impressions  of  sound,  — 
since  there  is  between  these  structures  and  the  ele- 
mentary structure  of  the  cerebrum  a  perfect  analogy, 
we  are  entitled  to  come  to  the  same  conclusion  in 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.       183 

this  instance  as  in  those,  and,  asserting  the  absolute 
inertness  of  the  cerebral  structure  in  itself,  to  impute 
the  phenomena  it  displays  to  an  agent  as  perfectly 
external  to  the  body,  and  as  independent  of  it,  as 
are  light  and  sound ;  and  that  agent  is  the  soul." 
[Applause.]  (DRAPER,  Physiology,  p.  285.)  That 
is  a  very  sacred  kind  of  Scripture,  for  it  is  the  record 
of  God's  work  fairly  interpreted. 

I  might  quote  twenty  other  authorities ;  but  I  cite 
this  book  because  it  has  a  great  fame  in  Germany,  and 
is  accessible  to  all,  and  because  Professor  Draper,  in 
a  most  painfully  unfair  volume  on  "  The  Conflict  be- 
tween Science  and  Religion,"  has  set  himself  some- 
what outside  the  pale  of  what  I  call  just  sympathies 
in  this  great  discussion.  He,  at  least,  has  proved  his 
freedom  from  all  traditional  opinions.  The  objec- 
tion to  the  latter  book  is,  that  he  confuses  Romanism 
and  Christianity,  and  shows  that  conflict  has  existed 
between  some  forms  of  the  church  and  science,  and 
then  infers  that  Christianity  itself  is  in  conflict  with 
clear  ideas.  This  man,  with  more  than  one  compeer 
of  his  in  the  latest  physiological  research  seconding 
his  words,  affirms,  in  the'  face  of  the  world,  that  "  It 
is  for  the  physiologist  to  assert  and  uphold  the  doc- 
trine of  the  oneness,  the  accountability  and  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  and  the  great  truth,  that,  as 
there  is  but  one  God  in  the  universe,  so  there  is  but 
one  spirit  in  man "  (DRAPER,  Physiology,  p.  24). 
"  We  have  established  the  existence  of  the  intellectual 
principle  as  external  to  the  body  "  (Ibid.,  p.  286). 
That  is  Beale,  and  that  is  Hermann  Lotze,  too. 


184  BIOLOGY. 

There  is  a  school  of  rather  small  philosophy  in 
Cambridge  yonder,  among  a  few  young  men,  who, 
very  unjustly  to  Harvard,  are  supposed  by  large 
portions  of  the  public  to  represent  the  University. 
I  happen  to  be  a  Harvard  man,  if  you  please,  and 
ought  to  know  something  of  my  Alma  Mater. 
There  is  not  a  paving-stone  or  an  elm-tree  in 
Cambridge  that  is  not  a  treasure  to  me.  Who  does 
represent  Harvard  ?  Hermann  Lotze  and  Frey  and 
Beale,  rather  than  Herbert  Spencer  and  Hiickel,  are 
the  authorities  which  the  strongest  men  at  Cambridge 
revere.  [Applause.]  The  North  American  Review, 
the  Harvard  chair  of  metaphysics,  the  Harvard  pul- 
pit, the  Cambridge  poets  and  men  of  letters,  who 
are  tall  enough  to  be  seen  across  the  Atlantic  and 
half  a  score  of  centuries,  are  not  converts  to  mate- 
rialism. 

Must  I  infer  that  the  New- York  Nation  is  pos- 
sessed of  a  philosophy  of  materialistic  tendency  ?  I 
have  not  criticised,  I  have  even  defended,  the  theistic 
doctrine  of  evolution.  I  have  endeavored  only  to 
show  that  the  atheistic  and  agnostic  forms  of  that  doc- 
trine are  violently  unscientific.  There  is  a  use  and 
an  abuse  of  the  theory ;  and  Dana 'represents  the  one, 
and  Hackel  the  other.  I  have  treated  atheism  and 
materialism  without  much  reverence  ;  for  I  revere  the 
scientific  method.  But  three  weeks  in  succession  I 
am  assailed  with  ridicule  without  argument  in  a  crit- 
ical journal  that  claims  to  be  courteous  and  fair.  As 
this  cultured,  and,  I  may  say,  distinguished  Boston 
audience  knows,  the  New-York  journal  has  stated 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.        185 

my  positions  with  the  most  broad  and  painful  inaccu- 
racy. Am  I  to  stand  here  before  an  audience  that 
has  as  much  culture  in  it  as  any  weekly  gathering  in 
the  United  States,  and  be  lashed  before  the  world 
b}^  this  New- York  weekly,  which  is,  indeed,  well 
informed  in  politics,  but  in  philosophy  is  so  far  be- 
hind our  times  as  to  be  now  predominantly  Spence- 
rian  ?  Its  editor,  as  you  know,  resides  in  Cambridge  ; 
and  the  small,  disowned  school  in  philosophy  there 
seems  to  have  taken  possession  of  this  periodical  of 
very  unequal  merit.  In  philosophy,  the  Nation  has 
no  outlook  beyond  the  Straits  of  Dover.  I  do  not 
remember  that  I  ever  saw  in  it  a  single  reference  to 
Hermann  Lotze,  or  any  proof  of  large  knowledge  of 
so  much  as  the  outlines  of  the  freshest  German 
thought  of  the  first  rank  on  the  physiological  side  of 
metaphysical  research.  As  to  present  culture  in  the 
wide  and  rich  theological  field,  I  may  say,  that,  so 
far  as  a  specialist's  judgment  is  worth  any  thing, 
mine  is,  that  the  Nation  cannot  be  trusted  on  this 
theme,  it  is  so  benighted  by  its  insular  philosophy, 
and  by  a  very  frequent  arrogance  toward  all  theology 
not  Spencerian.  This  paper  needs  a  rival.  I  dislike 
to  criticise  it;  for,  after  all,  it  is  our  poor  best  in 
the  way  of  a  critical  weekly.  At  a  hotel  table  in 
Munich  once,  a  haughty  English  lord  asked  me  what 
was  the  best  paper  in  America  of  the  order  of  the 
Saturday  Review  of  London.  "  The  Nation,"  I  said. 
"  Yes,"  he  replied ;  "  but  you  have  forty  millions 
of  people,  and  Great  Britain  has  only  forty  millions, 
and  you  have  but  one  paper  of  this  class." 


186  BIOLOGY. 

There  used  to  be  a  proverb,  that,  when  Philadelphia 
wanted  to  know  what  to  think,  she  looked  to  New 
York ;  and,  when  New  York  wanted  to  know  what 
to  think,  she  looked  to  Boston ;  and,  when  Boston 
wanted  to  know  what  to  think,  she  looked  to  Con- 
cord. No  doubt  this  proverb  originated  in  Concord. 
[Laughter.]  But  I  walked  the  other  day  with  a 
Concord  author  whose  words  have  been  read  with 
delight  by  two  generations,  and  will  be  remembered, 
I  hope,  by  twenty ;  and  he  said  to  me  under  those 
histoiic  elms  on  your  Boston  mall,  after  having  been 
twice  in  the  audience  of  this  Lectureship,  "  You  may 
tell  Boston  that  I,  for  one,  regard  Lionel  Beale  and 
Hermann  Lotze  as  the  rising  men  in  philosophy." 
That  is  Bronson  Alcott,  who  lives  not  far  from  the 
spot  where  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  lies  at  rest  till  the 
heavens  be  no  more.  If  you  listen  to  the  inner 
voice  of  Emerson's  latest  publications,  and  to  that 
of  Caiiyle's,  you  will  find  that  these  men  whom  you 
have  called  pantheists,  are  no  deniers  of  the  per- 
sonal immortality  of  the  soul. 

Am  I  out  of  my  field  in  endeavoring  to  prove  that 
man  has  a  soul  ?  Ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam.  Let  no 
shoemaker  go  beyond  his  last,  Horace  said  ages  ago. 
But  what  if,  in  the  progress  of  the  ages,  there  be 
made  a  new  last?  Significant  signs  of  the  times  are 
the  professorships  and  lectureships  starting  up  in  re- 
nowned theological  schools  on  the  relations  between 
the  religious  and  other  sciences.  In  New- York  City, 
in  Union  Seminary,  there  is  a  lectureship,  with  ten 
thousand  dollars  endowment  on  "The  Relations  of 


THE  NERVES  AND  THE  SOUL.        187 

the  Bible  to  the  Sciences."  It  is  called  the  Morse 
Lectureship,  because  founded  by  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse, 
in  memory  of  his  father,  who  was  only  a  doctor  of 
divinity.  In  the  same  school  there  is  a  lectureship 
on  "  Hygiene,"  founded  by  Willard  Barker.  We 
have  the  Vedder  Lectureship  at  the  New  Brunswick 
School  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  America.  Prince- 
ton has  a  chair,  established  in  1871,  designed  to  dis- 
cuss elaborately  "The  Relation  of  Christianity  to 
Natural  and  Speculative  Science."  Andover  has  a 
lectureship,  and  I  hope  may  soon  have  a  professor- 
ship, on  this  theme.  Out  of  place !  I  maintain  that 
all  these  foundations  are  timely,  and  deserve  the 
cordial  support  of  all  scholars.  They  are  a  new  last, 
indeed ;  but  the  occupants  of  these  chairs  will  make 
specialists  of  themselves  in  their  new  fields,  which 
will  by  no  means  be  outside  the  range  of  theological 
research.  All  these  facts  were  overlooked  by  the 
Nation  when  it  made  its  astute  examination  of  cata- 
logues to  see  whether  ministers  know  any  thing  of  the 
latest  philosophy.  Catalogues  are  a  sufficiently  sorry 
authority  ;  but  their  less  slovenly  perusal  might  have 
taught  this  journal  that  a  new  last  has  been  created 
by  a  new  time,  and  that,  in  the  name  of  Horace's 
maxim,  no  student  of  religious  science  can  be  warned 
off  the  field  which  Hermann  Lotze  and  Beale  have 
entered.  No  student  of  religious*  science  is  ade- 
quately equipped  for  his  work,  unless,  with  open 
eyes,  he  has  worshipped  in  that  temple  of  physiologi- 
cal research  where  Lotze  and  Helmholtz  and  Frey 
and  Wundt  and  Beale  and  Carpenter  and  Dana,  and 


188  BIOLOGY. 

all  men  of  science  who  think  not  to  twenty  only,  but 
to  thirty-two  points  of  the  compass,  now  kneel, 
hushed,  dead,  in  the  presence  of  a  Living  God,  but 
ready  to  rise  up  alive,  and  fill  civilization  with  their 
own  enthusiasm.  [Applause.] 


IX. 

DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?    IS  INSTINCT  IMMORTAL? 

THE    FIFTY-FOURTH    LECTURE    IN    THE    BOSTON    MONDAY 

LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN    TREMONT 

TEMPLE   NOV.   27. 


"  DES  Todes  rhiircndes  Biltl  steht, 

Nicht  als  Scnrccten  dem  "Wciscn,  und  niclit  als  Ende  dem  From- 
men." 

GOETHE:  Hermann  iind  Dorothea. 

"Dm Schopf ung himgt  als  Schleier,  der  aus  Sonnen  und  Geistern 
gewebt  1st,  iiber  dem  Unendlichen,  und  die  Ewigkeiten  gcheu  vor 
dem  Sclileier  vorbei,  und  ziehen  ilm  nicht  weg  von  dem  Glanze,  den 
er  verhiillet.  .  .  .  Ich  und  du,  und  alle  Menschen  und  alle  Engel 
und  alle  Wiirmclien  ruhen  an  seiner  Brust,  und  das  brausende, 
schlagende  Welten-  und  Sonnenmeer  ist  eiu  einzages  Kind  in  seinem 
Arm."  — JEAN  PAUL  KJCHTER,  Hesperus. 


IX. 


DOES   DE4TH   END   ALL?      IS  INSTINCT 
IMMORTAL  ? 

PRELUDE   ON   CURRENT   EVENTS. 

ON  the  morning  of  Saturday,  Oct.  23,  1852,  Dan- 
iel Webster,  whose  statue  was  unveiled  last  Saturday 
in  Central  Park,  said  to  his  physician,  "  I  shall  die 
to-night."  Dr.  Jeffries,  much  moved,  replied,  after 
a  pause,  "You  are  right,  sir."  The  gorgeous  and 
jewelled  October  day  rolled  on  at  the  edge  of  the 
sea ;  and,  when  evening  came,  the  last  will  and  tes- 
tament of  your  greatest  statesman  and  orator  was 
brought  to  him  for  his  signature,  which  he  affixed, 
and  then  said,  "  Thank  God  for  strength  to  do  a 
sensible  act !  O  God,  I  thank  thee  for  all  thy  mer- 
cies." His  family  was  brought  to  his  bedside ;  and 
his  biographer,  Curtis,  noticing  that  Mr.  Webster 
was  about  to  say  something  which  should  be  re- 
corded, took  his  seat  at  a  table,  and  caught  these 
last  words.  Curtis  says  they  were  uttered  slowly 
in  a  tone  which  might  have  been  heard  through  half 
the  house :  "  My  general  wish  on  earth  has  been  to 
do  my  Master's  will.  That  there  is  a  God,  all  must 
acknowledge.  I  see  him  in  all  these  wondrous  works. 

191 


192  BIOLOGY. 

Himself  how  wondrous !  What  would  be  the  con- 
dition of  any  of  us,  if  we  had  not  the  hope  of  immor- 
tality ?  What  ground  is  there  to  rest  upon  but  the 
gospel  ?  There  were  scattered  hopes  of  the  immor 
tality  of  the  soul,  especially  among  the  Jews.  The 
Jews  believed  in  a  spiritual  origin  of  creation.  The 
Romans  never  reached  it ;  the  Greeks  never  reached 
it.  It  is  a  tradition  that  communication  was  made 
to  the  Jews  by  God  himself  through  Moses.  There 
were  intimations,  crepuscular,  twilight.  But,  but, 
but,  thank  God !  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  brought 
life  and  immortality  to  light,  rescued  it,  brought  it 
to  light."  Then  the  greatest  reasoner  this  country 
has  produced  caused  a  sacred  hush  to  fall  upon  his 
dying-chamber;  and  in  a  loud,  firm  voice  he  re- 
peated the  whole  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  closing  with 
these  words,  "  Peace  on  earth,  and  good- will  to 
men:  that  is  the  happiness,  the  essence,  —  good- 
will to  men."  Another  authority,  that  of  his  own 
secretary,  says,  that,  in  the  last  week  of  his  life,  this 
man,  whose  career  you  know,  often  repeated  the 
whole  hymn,  of  which  the  first  stanza  is, — 

Show  pity,  Lord;  O  Lord,  forgive! 
Let  a  repeating  rebel  live. 
Are  not  thy  mercies  large  and  free  ? 
May  not  a  sinner  trust  in  thee  ? 

Webster  knew  his  own  need  of  these  petitions.  I 
am  not  here  to  say  that  he  lived  a  Christian  life.  I 
raise  this  morning,  when  Webster  is  before  the  nation, 
the  question,  whether  there  is  any  evidence  that  he 


IS  INSTINCT  IMMORTAL?  193 

died  repentant.  I  hope  there  is.  Not  many  years 
ago  I  sat,  on  a  howling  winter-night,  at  the  fireside 
of  John  Taylor  in  gnarled  New  Hampshire ;  and  he 
said  to  me,  "  Webster  always  attended  the  commu- 
nion-service when  he  was  at  Elms  Farm.  Till  his 
death  he  was  a  member  in  good  standing  with  the 
Salisbury  church,  with  which  he  united  when  a 
young  man."  —  "But,"  said  I,  "was  that  church 
strong  enough  to  discipline  a  statesman?"  —  "If 
Webster  had  shown,"  John  Taylor  replied,  "  any 
thing  of  intemperance,  or  other  evil  ways,  in  New 
Hampshire,  he  would  have  been  disciplined  by  that 
church.  What  he  did  in  Washington,  I  know  not. 
Here,  among  those  who  knew  him  best,  he  was  always 
ready  to  kneel  at  the  family  altar.  There  was  one 
hymn  that  we  always  used  to  like  to  sing  together," 
said  John  Taylor,  with  his  immense  bass  voice,  and 
wholly  unconscious  of  the  expression  he  was  making 
of  his  own  massiveness.  "  We  liked  to  sing  together 
4  Old  Hundred: '  it  seemed  to  fit  us."  The  venerable 
Judge  Nesmith,  whose  guest  I  have  sometimes  been 
at  Franklin,  has  told  me  things  almost  too  sacred  to 
be  repeated  here,  concerning  Webster's  religious 
thoughtfulness  in  his  last  years.  "  Were  they  the 
last  words  I  have  to  utter,"  said  John  Taylor  to  me, 
"  I  should  say  Webster  died  a  Christian  ; "  and  just 
this  testimony  has  been  given  me  by  the  profound 
judge,  Nesmith,  who  stands  highest  among  all  au- 
thorities concerning  Webster's  life  in  his  native 
haunts.  Your  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  at  New  York 
on  Saturday,  said  he  had  knelt  with  Webster  at  the 


194  BIOLOGY. 

table  of  our  Lord,  and  witnessed  the  fervor  and 
tenderness  of  his  devotions. 

But,  gentlemen,  a  death-bed  repentance  is  never 
to  be  encouraged  before  the  time,  or  discouraged  at 
the  time.  What  I  wish  to  insist  upon,  face  to  face 
with  all  the  small  philosophies  of  our  time  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic,  is  the  record  of  Webster's  last 
speech,  revised  by  himself.  These  sentences  which 
Curtis  caught  are  the  last  unrevised  speech.  But  on 
Sabbath  evening,  Oct.  10,  the  last  formal  speech  was 
written,  and  on  Oct.  15,  was  revised  and  signed  by 
Webster's  own  hand.  These,  his  last  revised  words, 
stand  upon  the  marble  of  the  tombstone  at  Marsh- 
field.  Plymouth  Rock  looks  on  them ;  and  they  look 
on  Plymouth  Rock.  This  is  the  record  Webster  left 
as  his  last  word  to  men  in  all  ages ;  and  ought  it  not 
to  be  copied  in  marble  in  some  spot  more  conspicuous 
than  that  brown  Marshfield  shore  ? 

"Philosophical  argument,  especially  that  drawn 
from  the  vastness  of  the  universe  as  compared  with 
the  apparent  insignificance  of  this  globe,  has  often 
shaken  my  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  me ;  but  my 
heart  has  assured  and  re-assured  me  that  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ  must  be  a  divine  reality.  The  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  cannot  be  a  merely  human  pro- 
duction. This  belief  enters  into  the  very  depth  of 
my  conscience.  The  whole  history  of  man  proves 
it"  (CuKTis's  Life  of  Webster,  vol.  ii.  p.  684). 

At  twenty-three  minutes  of  three  o'clock  on  the 
Sunday  morning  following  that  Saturday  which  was 
illumined  by  the  serious  words  on  immortality,  Web- 


IS   INSTINCT   IMMORTAL?  195 

ster  passed  into  the  Unseen  Holy  into  which  all  men 
haste.  Boston,  since  1852,  has  been  wringing  her 
hands  in  secret,  and  saying  not  infrequently,  as  the 
plain  man  said  at  the  tomb  ir  Marshfield,  "  Daniel 
Webster,  without  you  the  world  seems  lonesome." 
Are  we  sure  that  we  are  without  him  ?  When  Rufus 
Choate  took  ship  for  that  port  'vvhere  he  died,  some 
friend  said,  "  You  will  be  he~e  a  year  hence."  — 
"  Sir,"  said  your  great  lawyer.  "  I  shall  be  here  a 
hundred  years  hence,  and  a  thousand  years  hence." 
[Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

» 

If  death  does  not  end  all,  what  does  or  can?  If 
we  can  demonstrate  by  a  purely  physiological  argu- 
ment, as  Draper,  Lionel  Beale,  and  Hermann  Lotze, 
say  we  can,  that  the  soul  is  an  agent  as  external  to  the 
cerebral  mechanism  as  light  is  to  the  eye,  or  sound 
to  the  ear,  we  have  taken  the  Malakoff  and  Redan  of 
materialism ;  and  then  the  question  is,  whether  we 
can  get  on  in  Russia.  [Laughter.]  A  small  critic 
may  ask  how  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is  proved  by 
showing  its  externality  and  its  independence  in  its 
relations  to  the  physical  organism.  The  immortality 
is  not  directly  proved  by  the  proof  of  the  externality 
and  the  independence ;  but  it  is  indirectly  made  prob- 
able. If  you  take  Island  No.  10  and  New  Orleans, 
you  can  sail  from  St.  Louis  tc  die  Gulf,  and  thence 
to  any  coast  you  please.  If,  as  the  highest  philosophy 
of  Germany,  Scotland,  England,  and  America,  asserts, 
our  nervous  mechanism  is  wholly  inert  in  itself,  and 
as  plainly  requires  an  external  agent  to  set  it  in  mo- 


196  BIOLOGY. 

tion  as  any  musical  instrument  does,  then  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  brain  is  no  more  proof  of  the  dissolution 
of  the  soul  than  the  dissolution  of  your  organ  is 
proof  of  the  dissolution  of  the  musician  who  plays  it, 
but  who  has  Gyges'  ring  on  his  finger,  and  is  invisi- 
ble. It  has,  in  all  ages,  been  the  pretence  of  materi- 
alists, that  the  relation  of  the  soul  to  the  body  is  that 
of  harmony  to  the  harp,  and  not  of  the  harper  to  the 
harp,  or  of  the  rower  to  a  boat.  But  show  me  by 
physiological  argument  that  the  soul  is  an  agent  ex- 
ternal to  the  nervous  mechanism,  and  you  have  proved 
that  the  relation  of  the  soul  to  the  body  is  that  of  a 
harper  to  a  harp,  or  of  a  rower  to  a  boat ;  and,  in 
showing  that,  you  have  removed,  I  affirm,  not  only  a 
great,  but  the  greatest  obstacle  to  the  belief  in  im- 
mortality. Unless  there  is  evidence  to  the  contrary, 
as  there  is  not,  we  must  believe  in  the  persistency  of 
that  spiritual  force  which  we  call  the  soul ;  and  this 
we  must  do  in  the  name  of  the  scientific  principle  of 
the  persistence  of  force,  itself  the  most  vaunted  of  all 
modern  points  in  science.  [Applause^] 

Allow  me,  gentlemen,  to  untwist  a  little  the  famous 
Ariadne  clew,  which  we  follow  here  in  all  our  inves- 
tigation ;  namely,  that  every  change  must  have  an 
adequate  cause.  In  that  one  principle  lie  capsulate 
a  great  number  of  axioms  which  are  at  the  base  of  all 
kinds  of  research,  theological,  physiological,  political, 
or  historical. 

Lest  you  should  suspect  me  of  theological  bias  in 
untwisting  the  strands  of  this  clew,  take  that  inter- 
pretation of  it  which  the  great  physiologist,  Wundt, 


IS   INSTINCT   IMMORTAL?  197 

whom  I  have  often  quoted,  adopts  in  his  work  on 
"  The  Physical  Axioms  in  Relation  to  the  Principle 
of  Caus-alit}^,"  a  book  published  at  Erlangen  in 
1866.  Professor  Wundt  says  that  the  principle  that 
every  change  must  have  an  adequate  cause,  contains 
in  it  these  six  axioms  :  — 

1.  All  causes  in  Nature  are  causes  of  motion. 

2.  Every  cause  of  motion  is  external  to  the  object 
moved. 

3.  All  causes  of  motion  work  in  the  direction  of 
the  straight  line  uniting  the  point  from  which  the 
force  departs  with  the  point  upon  which  its  operation 
is  directed. 

4.  The  effect  of  every  cause  persists. 

5.  Every  effect  is  accompanied  by  an  equal  coun- 
ter-effect. 

6.  Every  effect  is  equivalent  to  its  cause. 
[WUNDT,  PROFESSOR  WILHELM,   On  the.  Physical 

Axioms  in  Relation  to  the  principle  of  Causality.  See, 
also,  UBERWEG'S  History  of  Philosophy,  passages  on 
Wundt.] 

Will  you  remember,  my  friends,  that  the  definition 
of  force  is  this,  That  which  is  expended  in  producing 
or  resisting  motion?  That  is  Meyer's  definition ;  and 
Meyer,  if  he  had  never  given  any  other  proof  of  genius 
than  this  one  phrase,  would  deserve  to  be  called  a 
man  of  great  powers.  But  go  behind  even  this  defini- 
tion, and,  for  the  sake  of  clear  ideas,  ask- what  is 
expended  in  producing  or  resisting  motion.  Surely 
the  only  thing  we  can  think  of  as  being  expended 
thus  is  pressure.  What  produces  pressure  ?  Your 


198  BIOLOGY. 

Carpenters,  your  Agassizes,  and  your  Herschels,  yotii 
Newtons,  your  Sir  William  Hamiltons,  your  Danas, 
as  well  as  your  Richters  and  Carlyles  and  Lotzes, 
all  hold  that  behind  the  pressures  which  produce 
the  motions  of  the  universe  is — WILL!  MOTIONS, 
PRESSURES,  WILL  —  is  the  universe  transfigured? 
[Applause.]  This  is  not  declamation,  however,  but 
established  philosophy  of  the  latest  date.  Whoever 
will  look  into  the  last  chapters  of  Dr.  Carpenter's 
"Mental  Physiology/'  or  at  the  last  sentence  of  Mr. 
Grove's  famous  "  Essay  on  Correlation  of  Forces," 
or  into  Professor  Agaesiz'  "  Essay  on  Classification," 
or  into  Sir  John  Herschel's  "Astronomy,"  or  Dana's 
"  Geology,"  or  Professor  Pierce's  great  work  on  "  The 
Mathematics  of  Astronomy,"  will  find  the  doctrine 
unhesitatingly  maintained,  that  force  is  always  and 
everywhere  of  spiritual  origin.  [Applause.]  When 
I  was  in.  Harvard  University,  I  went  one  day  into  a 
bookstore,  and  turned  over  a  great  quarto  on  "The 
Mathematics  of  Astronomy"  by  Professor  Pierce; 
and  I  came  upon  a  chapter  entitled  "  The  Spiritual 
Origin  of  Force."  I  looked  into  it ;  and,  welling 
up  out  of  that  stern  granite  of  mathematics,  I  found 
the  Castalian  spring  of  crystalline  water,  where 
the  Goethes,  and  Herschels,  and  Carpenters,  and 
Agassizes,  and  Lotzes,  and  Danas,  and  Richters, 
and  Carlyles  have  drunk  so  long.  In  the  transfigur- 
ing scientific  certainty  that  all  force  originates  in 
Will,  I  found  that  better  than  Delphic  spring,  one 
deep  draught  of  which  gives  a  new  vision  to  the  eyes, 
and  makes  the  whole  universe  a  burning  bush,  of 


IS   INSTINCT   IMMOKTAL?  199 

which  Orion  and  the  Seven  Stars  are  only  a  lower- 
most leaf,  but  every  fibre  of  which,  near  and  far, 
burns  with  a  fire  that  cannot  be  touched,  and  every 
dustiest  path  before  which  is  ground  so  holy,  that  on 
it  we  must  take  off  our  shoes,  however  proud  of  in- 
tellect we  may  be.  [Applause.]  Take  now,  the  doc- 
trine, that  wherever  we  find  heat,  light,  electricity,  we 
infer  motions  of  the  ultimate  particles  of  matter  as  the 
cause ;  and  that,  wherever  we  find  motions,  we  infer 
pressures  as  the  cause ;  and  that,  wherever  we  find 
pressures,  we  infer  WILL  as  the  cause,  —  and  you  have 
the  point  of  view  of  these  six  axioms,  which,  by  the 
way,  are  not  the  words  of  any  small  philosopher,  nor 
of  a  theologian,  nor  even  of  an  ethical  teacher,  but 
of  a  man  simply  of  the  microscope  and  scalpel,  adher- 
ing in  all  the  labyrinth  of  modern  physiological  in- 
vestigation, only  to  the  idea  of  sanity,  that  every 
change  must  have  an  adequate  cause.  [Applause.] 
You  say  that  this  is  poetry,  and  so  it  is ;  but  it  is 
also  cold,  exact  science.  You  say  this  is  not  Har- 
vard University.  Are  you  sure  ?  Yonder  on  the 
banks  of  the  Charles  sits  the  most  philosophical  poet 
of  our  generation,  yes,  tne  most  philosophical  on 
either  side  of  the  Atlantic ;  and,  in  the  name  of 
Harvard  University,  James  Russell  Lowell  might 
rise  and  sing  what  he  sang  in  his  own  name  only 
yesterday :  — 

"  God  of  our  fathers,  thou  who  wast, 
Art,  and  shalt  be,  when  the  eye-wise  who  flout 
Thy  secret  presence  shall  be  lost 
In  the  great  light  that  dazzles  them  to  doubt, 


200  BIOLOGY. 

We  who  believe  Life's  bases  rest 
Beyond  the  probe  ofchemic  test, 
Still,  like  our  fathers,  feel  thee  near."  * 

LOWELL,  Atlantic  Monthly,  D<»cember,  1876. 

[Applause.] 

I  hold  in  my  hand  an  important  and  enticing  book, 
eagerly  waited  for  by  me  for  one,  and  off  which  the 
spray  of  the  gray  sea  has  hardly  yet  been  shaken. 
It  is  a  volume  on  "  The  Functions  of  the  Brain," 
issued  only  last  month  by  Dr.  David  Ferrier,  fellow 
of  the  Royal  Society,  and  professor  of  forensic  medi- 
cine in  King's  College,  London  ;  and  it  will  need  no 
recommendation  to  gentlemen  of  the  medical  profes- 
sion, who  are  permitted  to  know  something  of  living 
tissues,  and  to  form  and  express  opinions  after  study 
as  to  the  great  controverted  theories  in  biology,  as 
no  layman  in  science  is  —  except  the  editor  of  the 
Nation.  [Laughter  and  applause.]  Professor  Fer- 
rier is  a  follower  of  two  great  German  investigators, 
Fritsch  and  Hitzig  ;  and  his  work  and  theirs  undoubt- 
edly constitute  not  only  the  freshest,  but  the  most 
important,  of  all  recent  contributions  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  nervous  system. 

Let  me  now,  in  the  name  of  the  latest  research, 
put  before  you,  step  by  step,  an  argument 'exclusively 
physiological,  and  leading  up,  as  that  of  last  Monday 
did,  along  this  line  of  Wundt's  wholly  tremorless 
axioms,  to  the  conclusion  that  the  soul  is  external  to 
the  nervous  mechanism,  which  it  sets  in  motion. 

1.  Fritsch  and  Hitzig  and  Dr.  Ferrier  have  proved 
that  certain  of  the  convolutions  of  the  brain  of  a 


IS   INSTINCT   IMMORTAL?  201 

living  animal  may  be  electrically  stimulated  so  as  tc 
produce  in  the  animal  various  physical  actions. 

2.  The  stimulation  of  different  parts  of  the  brain 
produces  different  results,  which  can  be  foretold  by 
the  experimenter. 

3.  The  doctrine  of  the  localization  of  functions  in 
the  brain  is  now,  therefore,  practically  beyond  dis- 
pute. 

I  am  aware  that  two  great  physiological  parties  — 
the  localizers  and  the  anti-localizers  —  occupy  the  field 
of  recent  investigation  concerning  the  brain.  But,  if 
we  have  Brown-Sequard,  Hermann,  Foster,  and  Dupuis 
among  the  anti-localizers,  we  have  among  the  localizers 
the  now  preponderating  names  of  Charcot,  Fritsch, 
Hitzig,  Ranke,  Carpenter,  Ferrier,  Draper,  and  Dalton. 

When  you  give  a  rabbit  chloroform,  and  then  re- 
move a  portion  of  its  skull,  the  animal  suffers  no 
pain,  and  consequently  does  not  fall  into  such  con- 
tortions as  to  cause  the  act  of  taking  away  parts  of 
the  skull  to  injure  the  delicate  texture  of  the  brain. 
We  have  succeeded  at  last  in  uncovering  the  living, 
palpitating,  cerebral  tissues,  without  disturbing  their 
delicate  machinery ;  and  we  have  done  this  by  the 
use  of  chloroform,  not  known  in  the  world  as  an 
ansesthetic  until  a  few  years  ago.  Using  electrical 
currents  that  are  just  distinguishable  by  the  tip  of 
the  human  tongue,  and  employing  blunted  electrodes 
that  will  not  scarify  the  nervous  webs  we  touch, 
we  may  stimulate  the  exposed  brain  of  a  living 
animal,  and  ascertain  that  the  stimulus  on  differ- 
ent parts  produces  different  motions.  We  may 


202  BIOLOGY. 

accurately  foretell  these  motions,  after  having  had  a 
sufficient  experience  in  such  kinds  of  experiments. 
One  particular  part  of  the  brain,  for  instance,  will, 
if  stimulated,  produce  the  attitude  of  resistance  in 
the  animal ;  and  another  part,  if  stimulated,  will 
cause  the  attitude  of  fear.  In  short,  a  large  portion 
of  the  brain  has  now  been  investigated  in  this  way 
so  thoroughly,  that  wo  may  affirm  that  it  is  a  key- 
board on  which  electricity  may  play.  This  effect  of 
galvanic  currents  on  the  automatic  nervous  mechan- 
ism is  peculiarly  evident  on  the  lower  or  automatic 
nerve-arcs.  You  stimulate  a  centrifugal  automatic 
nerve  [referring  to  the  blackboard],  and  you  will  pro- 
duce motion  in  the  muscle  attached  to  the  correlated 
centrifugal  fibre. 

Is  there  any  proof  at  all  that  the  whole  brain  is  a 
keyboard  that  can  thus  be  played  upon  by  electrical 
stimulation  ? 

A  portion  of  it  more  closely  connected  with  the 
spinal  cord  than  the  rest  is  a  keyboard ;  but  does  the 
law  of  the  automatic  portion  extend  to  the  whole 
mass  of  the  brain?  The  nervous  mechanism  is 
divided  into  the  influential  and  automatic  arcs. 
Does  this  fundamental  distinction  hold  good  under 
the  searching  test  of  electrical  stimulation  ? 

4.  It  is  agreed  that  the  frontal  lobes  are  the  seat 
of  intellect. 

5.  But  electrical  stimulation  of  these  highest  parts 
of   the    influential    nervous   mechanism  produces   no 
motion. 

If  there  are  produced  in  this  portion  of  the  influ 


IS   INSTINCT   IMMOBTAL?  203 

ential  arcs  by  electricity  such  tremors  as  cause  mus- 
cular motion  when  produced  by  electricity  in  the 
automatic  arcs,  no  motion  follows  in  the  muscles. 
This  is  a  fact  of  vast  significance ;  but  there  is 
another  of  even  higher  import. 

6.  If  one  hemisphere  of  the  brain   be   removed, 
paralysis  of  the  powers  of  motion  and  sensation  fol- 
lows in  one-half  the  body. 

7.  But,  even  when   one  hemisphere  of  the  brain  is 
removed,  all    the  mental  operations  may  yet  be  fully 
performed    (FERRIER,   Functions    of  the   Brain,    p. 
257). 

8.  These  results  of  electrical  stimulation  and  of 
cerebral  injury,  being  opposite  in  the  two  cases,  prove 
that  physiological  causes  such  as  are  concerned  in 
the  automatic  nervous  mechanism  are  not  to  be  found 
in  operation  in  the   influential  nervous  mechanism 
as  it  is   represented   by   the   anterior   lobes   of  the 
brain. 

9.  The  distinction  between  automatic  and  influen- 
tial is  made  broader,  therefore,  by  the  latest  scientific 
research. 

Let  us  examine  a  little  leisurely  the  bearing  of 
these  propositions  upon  the  great  biological  distinc- 
tion between  the  automatic  and  the  influential  por- 
tions in  the  nervous  system.  The  important  point 
to  be  noticed  [illustrating  by  diagrams]  is,  that  you 
may  stimulate  with  electricity  an  influential  arc  here, 
and  not  produce  any  motion  yonder.  On  the  con- 
trary, touch  the  corresponding  portion  of  an  auto- 
matic arc,  and  you  move  this  muscular  fibre.  Al- 


204  BIOLOGY. 

though  this  mechanism  is  called  automatic,  remember 
that  it  was  made  so  by  the  bioplasts  that  wove  it, 
and  that  a  contractile  quality  was  given  to  this  mus- 
cular fibre  by  the  bioplasts  that  wove  both  it  and 
this  nerve,  and  tied  the  two  together.  Apply  your 
electrode  to  the  automatic  arc,  and  you  produce  con- 
traction ;  but  apply  your  electrode  to  the  influential 
arc,  and  you  produce  no  contraction.  There  is, 
therefore,  a  difference  between  the  structure  of  an 
influential  arc  and  that  of  an  automatic  arc.  We 
prove  this  tangibly  when  we  try  point  after  point 
of  the  brain  and  of  the  great  nervous  centres  con- 
necting it  with  the  spinal  cord,  and  find  that  the 
lower  powers  of  the  nervous  mechanism  are  reflex 
and  automatic,  but  that  these  higher  frontal  lobes 
are  ocularly  demonstrable  not  to  be  of  that  sort. 
When  we  apply  to  them  the  electrical  test  which 
produces  motion  elsewhere,  no  motion  whatever  is 
produced. 

If  you  take  away  one  hemisphere  of  the  brain, 
what  is  the  effect  ?  One-half  the  body  is  paralyzed. 
The  sensation  and  the  motion  which  belong  to  the 
side  of  the  body  opposite  to  the  removed  hemisphere 
are  gone.  But  your  mental  powers  continue,  and 
exhibit  in  completeness  all  their  activities.  Dr.  Fer- 
rier  himself  is  authority  for  the  astounding  fact  that 
the  action  of  the  mind  is  not  so  bound  up  even  with 
these  influential  arcs,  that  it  cannot  show  the  whole 
army  of  its  powers  when  you  take  away  one  whole 
hemisphere  of  the  brain.  If  that  can  be  proved, 
gentlemen,  it  has  been  proved  tolerably  well,  I  should 


IS  INSTINCT   IMMORTAL?  205 

say,  that  there  is  a  difference  between  the  influential 
and  the  automatic  arcs,  or  that  between  the  two  things 
there  is  as  broad  a  contrast  as  between  the  two  scien- 
tific names.  Just  that  has  been  proved  beyond  dis- 
pute. It  is  admitted  by  the  latest  science  that  you 
can  take  away  one  hemisphere  of  the  brain,  and  have 
complete  mental  action  yet  remaining,  although  you 
cannot  take  away  one  hemisphere  without  paralyzing 
one-half  of  the  body.  If  I  show  this,  1  prove  that 
there  is  a  distinction  of  great  breadth  and  signifi- 
cance between  the  influential  and  the  automatic 
arcs. 

"  The  physiological  activity  of  the  brain,"  says 
Professor  Ferrier  in  a  most  suggestive  passage,  "is 
not  altogether  co-extensive  with  its  psychological 
functions.  The  brain  as  an  organ  of  motion  and  sen- 
sation, or  presentative  consciousness,  is  a  single  organ 
composed  of  two  halves :  the  brain  as  an  organ  of 
ideation,  or  re-presentative  consciousness,  is  a  dual 
organ,  each  hemisphere  complete  in  itself.  When  one 
hemisphere  is  removed  or  destroyed  by  disease,  motion 
and  sensation  are  abolished  unilaterally"  —  that  is, 
upon  the  opposite  side,  —  "  but  mental  operations  are 
still  capable  of  being  carried  on  in  their  completeness 
through  the  agency  of  the  one  hemisphere.  The  indi- 
vidual who  is  paralyzed  as  to  sensation  and  motion  by 
disease  of  the  opposite  side  of  the  brain  (say  the 
right)  is  not  paralyzed  mentally ;  for  he  can  still  feel 
and  will  and  think,  and  intelligently  comprehend, 
with  the  one  hemisphere."*  If  these  functions  are  not 
carried  on  with  the  same  vigor  as  before,  they  at  least 


206  BIOLOGY. 

do  not  appear  to   suffer  in  respect  of  completeness" 
(FEKRIER'S  Functions  of  the  Brain,  p.  257,  §  89). 

A  great  fact  this,  even  when  standing  alone ;  but 
add  to  it  the  test  of  your  subtle  electrical  stimulus, 
and  you  find  that  all  that  is  implied  in  the  distinction 
between  influential  and  automatic  is  borne  out  by 
these  two  colossal  circumstances,  —  that  stimulus  on 
the  influential  arcs  will  produce  no  motion,  but  that 
it  does  produce  complex  motion  if  applied  to  the 
automatic  arcs;  and  that  half  of  the  brain  may  be 
taken  away,  paralyzing  the  half  of  your  body,  while 
the  mind  continues  all  its  operations.  [Applause.] 

10.  Physiological  causes  do  not  act  where  they  do 
not  exist. 

11.  The  action  of  the  influential  nervous  mechan- 
ism is  not,  therefore,  originated  by  the  physical  causes 
operating  in  the  automatic  nervous  mechanism. 

12.  But  the  inertness  of  the  mechanism  in  itself 
demonstrates  that  it  must  be  set  in  motion  by  an 
external  agent. 

13.  That  agent  must  be  either  matter  or  mind. 

14.  It  is  demonstrated  that  the  action  of  the  bio- 
plasts in  weaving  the  brain,  and  that  of  the  frontal 
lobes  after  they  are  woven,  cannot  originate  in  mat- 
ter. 

15.  It  originates,  therefore,  in  an  external  imma- 
terial agent. 

16.  This,  which  is,  in  part,  immediately  known  to 
consciousness,  is  life  and  the  soul. 

17.  Modern     microscopical     research,     therefore, 
proves  that  the  soul  is  an  agent  external  to  the  nerv- 
ous mechanism  which  it  sets  in  motion. 


IS  INSTINCT   IMMORTAL?  207 

18.  This  being  proved,  it  is  demonstrated  that  the 
relation  of  the  soul  to  the  body  is  that  of  the  rower 
to  a  boat,  or  of  an  invisible  musician  to  a  musical 
instrument, 

19.  But  it  has  been  admitted  for  ages  by  material- 
ists themselves,  that,  if  this  is  proved,  then  death  does 
not  end  all. 

Therefore,  in  the  present  state  of  knowledge,  the 
case  stands  thus : 

20.  If  death  does  not  end  all,  what  does  or  can  ? 
[Applause.] 

"  Electrical  irritation  of  the  antero-frontal  lobes," 
says  Dr.  Ferrier,  "  causes  no  motor  manifestations,  — 
a  fact,  which,  though  a  negative  one,  is  consistent  with 
the  view,  that,  though  not  actually  motor,  they  are 
inhibitory  motor,  and  expend  their  energy  in  indu- 
cing internal  changes  in  the  centres  of  actual  motor 
execution.  .  .  .  The  development  of  the  frontal  lobes 
is  greatest  in  men  with  the  highest  intellectual 
powers;  and,  taking  one  man  with  another,  the 
greatest  intellectual  power  is  characteristic  of  the 
one  with  the  greatest  frontal  development.  The 
phrenologists  have,  I  think,  good  grounds  for  local- 
izing the  reflective  faculties  in  the  frontal  regions  of 
the  brain ;  and  there  is  nothing  inherently  improba- 
ble in  the  view  that  frontal  development  in  special 
regions  may  be  indicative  of  power  of  concentration 
of  thought  and  intellectual  capacity  in  special  direc- 
tions "  (FERRIER,  Functions  of  the  Brain,  pp.  287, 
288). 

In  this  assertion,  that  a  four-banked  organ  has  more 


208  BIOLOGY. 

musical  power  than  one  with  a  single  bank,  Ferriei 
is  not  falling  into  materialism ;  nor  is  he  adopting 
the  whole  phrenological  map,  of  most  portions  of 
which  he  speaks  with  no  respect.  His  belief  is,  that 
a  new  and  better  map  will  be  made  some  day  by  in- 
finite painstaking.  He  asserts  simply  that  the  keys 
on  which  the  anthems  of  intellect  are  played  are  in 
the  frontal  portion  of  the  brain,  and  that  this  anthem 
is  at  its  best  when  the  rows  of  keys  are  the  most 
numerous,  on  which  our  invisible  musician  with 
Gyges'  ring  plays.  [Applause.] 

What  of  the  immortality  of  instinct?  A  great 
distinction  exists  between  those  organisms  that  are 
mere  automata,  or  have  life,  but  no  free-wills  or  con- 
sciences, and  the  higher  animals,  which  have  both  the 
automatic  and  the  influential  nervous  mechanism. 
The  plant  and  the  automaton  have  life,  but  not  souls 
in  the  full  sense  of  the  word.  But  do  not  facts  require 
us  to  hold  that  the  immaterial  part  in  animals  having 
higher  than  automatic  endowments  is  external  to  the 
nervous  mechanism  in  them  as  well  as  in  man  ?  What 
are  we  to  say  if  we  find  that  straightforwardness  may 
lead  us  to  the  conclusion  that  Agassiz  was  not  unjusti- 
fiable when  he  affirmed,  in  the  name  of  science,  that 
instinct  may  be  immortal,  and  when  he  expressed, 
in  his  own  name,  the  ardent  hope  that  it  might  be  ? 

Go  to  Agassiz'  grave  in  Mount  Auburn  yonder, 
and,  at  the  side  of  the  Swiss  bowlder  which  marks 
the  spot,  stand  alone  and  read  these  words  of  his, 
and  meanwhile  send  your  thoughts  onward  into  the 
eternities  and  immensities,  whither,  no  doubt,  he  sent 


IS  INSTINCT  IMMORTAL?  209 

his,  when  he  wrote  in  the  face  of  the  world  this 
majestic  inquiry.  These  are  the  closing  sentences 
of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  passages  in  perhaps 
the  most  remarkable  of  his  works,  —  his  "  Essay  on 
Classification  :  "  "  Most  of  the  arguments  of  philoso- 
phy in  favor  of  the  immortality  of  man  apply  equal- 
ly to  the  permanency  of  the  immaterial  principle  in 
other  living  beings.  May  I  not  add  that  a  future 
life  in  which  man  should  be  deprived  of  that  great 
source  of  enjoyment,  and  intellectual  and  moral  im- 
provement, which  result  from  the  contemplation  of 
the  harmonies  of  an  organic  world,  would  involve  a 
lamentable  loss  ?  and  may  we  not  look  to  a  spiritual 
concert  of  the  combined  worlds  and  all  their  inhab- 
itants in  presence  of  their  Creator,  as  the  highest 
conception  of  paradise  ?  " 

(AGASSiz,  Louis,  Contributions  to  the  Nat.  Hist. 
of  the  U.  S.,  vol.  i.  p.  66 ;  Essay  on  Classification, 
close  of  part  i.  chap.  1,  sect,  xvii.) 

"  It  was  seventy  years  ago, 

In  the  pleasant  month  of  May, 
In  the  beautiful  Pays  de  Vaud, 

A  child  in  his  cradle  lay  ; 
And  Nature,  the  old  nurse,  took 

The  child  upon  her  knee. 
4  Come,  wander  with  me,'  she  said, 

'  Into  regions  yet  untrod, 
And  read  what  is  still  unread 

In  the  manuscripts  of  God. ' 
And  whenever  the  way  seemed  long, 

Or  his  heart  began  to  fail, 
She  would  sing  a  more  wonderful  song, 

Or  tell  a  more  marvellous  tale." 
LONGFELLOW,  On  the  Fiftieth  Birthday  of  Agassiz, 


210  BIOLOGY. 

What  sings  she  now  to  this  great  soul  which  has 
passed  into  that  paradise  of  which  his  worthiest  con- 
deption  was,  that  it  should  be  a  concert  of  the  com- 
bined worlds  ?  One  cannot  but  recollect  in  the  sub- 
limity of  this  passage  that  this  man  was  born  in 
sight  of  the  Alps.  Of  French  descent,  of  Swiss 
birth,  of  German  education,  of  American  activity, 
Agassiz  is  now  of  the  house  not  made  with  hands ; 
and  so  large  was  he,  that,  even  when  in  the  flesh,  he 
appeared  by  forecast  to  be  a  citizen,  not  of  America, 
or  of  Europe,  but  of  the  supreme  theocracy,  in  whose 
presence  he  hoped  to  see  a  concert  of  the  combined 
worlds  and  all  their  inhabitants.  [Applause.] 

Richter  used  to  say  that  the  interstellar  spaces  are 
the  homes  of  souls. 

Tennyson  sings  most  subtly  his  trust :  — 

"  That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet ; 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete. 

That  not  a  worm  is  cloven  in  vain  ; 
That  not  a  moth  with  vain  desire 
Is  shrivelled  in  a  fruitless  fire. ' ' 

IN  MEMORIAM,  liii. 

Is  it  not  worth  while  for  us,  standing  here  at 
Agassiz'  tomb,  with  Richter  on  our  right,  and  Ten- 
nyson on  our  left,  to  pause  a  moment,  and  on  their 
wings,  so  much  stronger  than  ours,  to  look  abroad  a 
little  into  this  highest  conception  of  paradise?  A 
concert  of  combined  worlds  1  The  Seven  Stars  have 


IS  INSTINCT   IMMORTAL?  211 

their  planets  ;  Orion  in  this  infinite  azure  is  attended 
by  his  retinue  of  worlds ;  the  lightest  feather  of  the 
Swan  which  flies  through  the  Milky  Way  represents 
uncounted  galaxies ;  in  the  north,  Ursa  Major  guards 
realms  of  life  so  broad,  that  thought  faints  in  pass- 
ing across  but  one  of  the  eyelashes  of  the  eternal 
constellation  as  it  paces  about  the  pole  unwearied ; 
Aquarius,  Bootes,  Sagittarius,  Hercules,  each  holds 
in  his  far-spread  palm  of  sidereal  fire  innumerable 
inhabitants.  What  if  Agassiz  and  Klchter  and 
Cuvier  and  Milton  and  Shakspeare,  and  that  host 
which  no  man  can  number,  are  studying  at  this 
moment  a  concert  of  all  the  life  of  Orion  and  the 
Seven  Stars,  Ursa  Major,  and  the  rest,  and  of  that 
forgotten  speck  which  we,  on  this  lonely  shore  of 
existence,  call  earth  ?  The  loftiest  exhibition  of 
organic  life  of  all  kinds  from  all  worlds,  and  in  the 
presence  of  their  Creator !  Would  it  not  be  an  im- 
measurable loss  to  be  without  this  concert  of  com- 
bined worlds?  Would  it  not  be  a  diminution  of 
supreme  bliss  not  to  have  union  with  God  through 
these,  the  most  majestic  of  his  works  below  our- 
selves? Shall  we,  too,  not  hope  that  this  highest 
conception  of  paradise  may  be  the  true  one  ?  Rich- 
ter  would  say,  if  he  stood  here,  that  he  hopes  it  may 
be.  Tennyson  says,  as  he  stands  here,  that  he  wishes 
it  may  be.  Must  not  we,  remembering  the  long 
line  of  acute  souls  who  have  believed  in  the  possi- 
bility that  instinct  is  immortal,  say,  that,  if  it  be  so, 
it  is  best  that  it  should  be  so  ?  Whether  it  is  so  or 
not,  I  care  not  to  assert :  what  I  do  affirm  is,  that  the 


212  BIOLOGY. 

argument  for  immortality,  by  striking  againsfc  the 
possibility  that  instinct  may  be  immortal,  is  not 
wrecked,  but  glorified.  [Applause.] 

When  we  close  our  short  careers,  some  questions 
that  we  debate  as  matters  of  high  philosophy  will  be 
personal  to  you  and  to  me.  As  we  lie  where  Web- 
ster lay,  face  to  face  with  eternity,  and  its  breath  on 
our  cheeks,  there  will  come  to  us,  as  it  cannot  come 
now,  the  query  whether  the  relation  of  our  souls  to 
our  bodies  is  that  of  harmony  to  a  harp,  or  of  the 
harper  to  the  harp.  The  time  is  not  distant  when  it 
will  be  worth  something  to  us  to  remember  that  they 
who  walk  late  on  the  deck  of  the  Santa  Maria  have 
seen  a  light  rise  and  fall  ahead  of  us.  The  exter- 
nality and  independence  of  the  soul  in  relation  to  the 
body  are  known  now  under  the  microscope  and  scal- 
pel better  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  our  race. 
Exact  science,  in  the  name  of  the  law  of  causation, 
breathes  already  through  her  iron  lips  a  whisper,  to 
which,  as  it  grows  louder,  the  blood  of  the  ages  will 
leap  with  new  inspiration.  Before  that  iron  whisper, 
all  objections  to  immortality  are  shattered.  [Ap- 
plause.] If,  in  the  name  of  physiology,  we  remove 
all  objections,  you  will  hear  your  Webster,  when  he 
comes  to  you,  and  says  that  a  Teacher  attested  by 
the  ages  as  sent  with  a  supreme  Divine  mission 
brought  life  and  immortality  to  light.  There  is  no 
darkness  that  can  quench  the  illumination  which  now 
rises  on  the  world.  No  ascending  fog  from  the  shal- 
lows of  materialism  can  put  out  the  sun  of  axiomatic 
truth.  Ay,  my  friends,  in  the  oozy  depths  of  the 


IS  INSTINCT   IMMOKTAL?  213 

pools  where  the  reptiles  lie  among  the  reeds  in  the 
marshes  of  materialism,  there  arises  a  vapor,  which, 
as  it  ascends  higher,  that  sun  will  irradiate,  will 
stream  through  with  his  slant  javelins  of  scientific 
clearness,  until  this  very  matter  which  we  have 
dreaded  to  investigate  shall  take  on  all  the  glories 
of  the  morning,  and  become,  by  reflected  light,  the 
bridal  couch  of  a  new  Day,  in  a  future  civilization. 
[Applause.] 


x. 

DOES  DEATH  END  ALL?   BAIN'S  MATERIALISM. 

THE    FIFTY-FIFTH   LECTURE    IN   THE   BOSTON   MONDAY 

LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IN   TREMONT 

TEMPLE   DEC.   7. 


heiligen  Todten  gleichgiiltig  sind,  dem  werden  es  die 
Lebendigen  auch."  —  JEAN  PAUL  RICHTEK,  Titan,  cycle  47. 

"  FIVE  hundred  doors 
And  forty  more 
Metbinks  are  in  Valhalla. 
Eight  hundred  heroes  through  each  door 
Shall  issue  forth. 

All  men  of  worth 
Shall  there  abide. 

The  ash  Igdrasil 
Is  the  first  of  trees." 

THE  PROSE  EDDA. 


DOES    DEATH    END    ALL?  —  BAIN'S    MA- 
TERIALISM. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

CHABLES  DICKENS,  toward  the  close  of  his  "  Ameri- 
can Notes,"  says,  that,  when  in  the  United  States  on 
his  first  visit,  he  was  often  forced  by  sheer  amaze- 
ment to  ask  why  dishonesty,  conjoined  with  high  in- 
tellectual capacity,  received  so  much  reverence  from 
Americans.  "  Is  it  not  a  very  disgraceful  circum- 
stance," Dickens  would  inquire,  "  that  such  a  man 
as  So-and-so  should  be  acquiring  a  large  property  by 
the  most  infamous  and  odious  means,  and,  notwith- 
standing all  the  crimes  of  which  he  has  been  guilty, 
should  be  tolerated  and  sheltered  by  your  citizens  ? 
He  is  a  public  nuisance,  is  he  not  ?  "  —  "  Yes,  sir."  — 
"  A  convicted  liar  ?  "  —  "  Yes,  sir."  —  "  He  has  been 
kicked  and  cuffed  and  caned?"  —  "Yes,  sir."  — 
"  And  he  is  utterly  dishonorable,  debased,  and  profli- 
gate ?  "  —  "  Yes,  sir."  —  "  In  the  name  of  wonder 
then,  what  is  his  merit  ?  "  —  "  Well,  sir,  he  is  a  smart 
man."  [Applause  and  laughter.]  Dickens  says 
he  held  this  dialogue  a  hundred  times  (American 

217 


218  BIOLOGY. 

Notes,  chap,  xviii.).  In  Dickens's  name  I  once  told 
this  anecdote  to  a  learned  German,  who  replied 
in  the  spirit  of  the  renowned  German  candor,  and 
in  his  own  name,  bringing  his  hand  down  upon 
the  table  with  an  emphasis  that  made  the  glasses 
ring,  "  That  word  '  smart '  will  break  America's 
neck  yet,  unless  you  break  the  word's  neck."  [Ap- 
plause and  laughter.] 

Every  gentleman's  political  sympathies  I  wish  to 
treat  always  with  as  much  respect  as  I  treat  my  own ; 
but  as  to  my  own  I  say,  Perish  my  political  party,  if 
it  succeeds  by  fraud !  [Much  applause.] 

We  are  suddenly  entering,  in  our  hundredth  year, 
upon  an  as  yet  almost  unnoticed,  but  subtly  sugges- 
tive exhibition  of  one  great  weakness  in  our  political 
system  ;  namely,  that,  in  close  elections,  gigantic 
political  spoils  tempt  to  gigantic  political  frauds.  In 
presence  of  Centennial  guests  we  are  now  in  the 
midst  of  a  war  of  affidavits ;  and  it  appears  that 
the  combatants  are  about  equally  able.  [Laugh- 
ter.] It  is  no  empty  sign  of  our  times  that 
contestants  for  Apolitical  primacy  in  a  territory 
greater  than  Csesar  ever  ruled  over  cannot  satisfy 
each  other  that  each  means  to  be  fair.  The  far- 
seeing,  fateful  Muse  of  history,  holding  her  pen 
in  readiness  to  record  what  is  yet  to  be  in  Ameri- 
ca, and  looking  on  the  present  and  coming  size 
and  fatness  of  party  political  spoils  in  the  United 
States,  whispers  to  our  people  anxiously  the  words 
of  Shakspeare's  Coriolanus :  — 


BAIN'S  MATERIALISM.  219 

"  My  soul  aches 

To  know,  when  two  authorities  are  up, 
Neither  supreme,  how  soon  confusion 
May  enter  'twixt  the  gap  of  both,  and  take 
The  one  by  the  other." 

There  are  now  eighty  thousand  minor  offices  filled 
by  party  patronage  in  the  United  States.  While  the 
principle,  that  to  political  victors  belong  political 
spoils,  governs  our  politics,  eighty  thousand  men  will 
be  turned  out  of  office,  and  eighty  thousand  put  in, 
with  every  change  of  the  national  administration. 
You  know  that  Washington  turned  out  but  eight 
men,  Adams  only  four,  Jefferson  thirty-nine,  but  not 
one  of  them  for  political  reasons,  Madison  nine,  Mun- 
roe  five,  and  the  younger  Adams  only  two,  but  Jack- 
son six  hundred  and  ninety.  Our  population,  as  a 
whole,  is  doubling  every  thirty  years.  Soon  we  shall 
have  two  hundred  thousand  or  three  hundred  thou- 
sand to  be  turned  out  or  put  in  whenever  a  President 
is  elected.  Will  the  republic  bear  that  strain  ?  You 
will  not,  you  say,  vote  for  Washington's  and  Jeffer- 
son's rule,  —  to  appoint  the  able,  promote  the  worthy, 
and  never  remove  the  worthy  for  merely  partisan  rea- 
sons. You  fear  that  there  might  grow  up,  under  such 
a  practice,  an  aristocracy  of  office-holders.  It  does 
not  seem  to  occur  to  the  astute  opponents  of  civil- 
service  reform  that  such  an  aristocracy,  as  it  would 
not  be  turned  out  or  put  in  by  party  patronage,  and 
not  be  changed  with  the  administrations,  would  serve 
both  political  parties,  and  so  be  no  aristocracy  at  all. 

Let  the  nation  adhere  for  a  century  longer  to 


220  BIOLOGY. 

Jackson's  accursed  principle,  that  to  political  victors 
belong  all  political  spoils,  and  what  must  be  the 
effect?  What  if  closely  contested  national  elections 
occur  ?  The  spoils  of  party  patronage  are  already 
becoming  so  great  in  the  United  States  as  to  consti 
tute,  with  large  and  often  controlling  portions  of  both 
political  parties,  wholly  irresistible  temptations  to 
fraud.  But  the  spoils  grow  vaster  and  fatter  with 
fearful  speed.  Only  civil-service  reform  can  remove 
this  enormous  coming  mischief.  It  can  do  so  only  by 
taking  patronage  from  party,  and  giving  it  to  the 
people.  Gigantic  party  political  spoils,  gigantic  party 
political  frauds,  —  these  are  cause  and  effect.  They 
imperil  the  peace  of  the  republic.  They  must  do 
so  more  and  more  as  our  population  grows.  Ulti- 
mately in  America  there  will  be  either  civil-service  re- 
form or  civil  war.  [Sensation.] 

THE   LECTURE. 

Plato  represents  Socrates  as  saying  that  he  had 
looked  at  many  authorities,  and,  among  others,  at  the 
nature  of  things,  but  dared  not  look  long  at  the  lat- 
ter for  fear  his  eyes  would  be  dazzled  (Pliaedori), 
It  is  the  radiance  of  the  nature  of  things,  or  axio- 
matic, self-evident  truth,  which  must  frighten  back 
to  Chaos  the  vampire  Doubt.  On  some  sickly  veins 
of  our  meaning  and  sceptical  age  that  vampire  broods 
as  a  nightmare  ;  but  no  nightmare  can  bear  the  noon. 
Mrs.  Browning  sang  plaintively  in  the  name  of  poe- 
try, and  her  antipodes,  Ernst  Hackel,  affirms  aggres- 
sively in  the  name  of  science,  that, 

"  A  wider  metaphysics  would  not  harm  our  physics." 


BAIN'S  MATERIALISM.  221 

Two  thousand  years  ago,  Aristotle,  with  a  measure- 
less plaintiveness  and  gladness,  wrote  what  the  history 
of  all  discussion  has  since  confirmed,  that  they  who 
forsake  the  nature  of  things,  or  axiomatic  first  truths, 
will  not  and  can  not  find  any  thing  surer  on  which  to 
build.  Let  us  bring  all  those  who  are  halt  and  lame 
and  blind  with  doubt,  or  mental  unrest,  into  the  sun- 
light of  axioms.  Let  us  cheer  ourselves  in  the  vivi- 
fying radiance  of  the  noon  of  the  self-evident  truths. 
The  questions  which  the  progress  of  science  raises 
the  progress  of  science  will  answer.  It  will  do  so, 
not  to  the  detriment,  but  to  the  coronation,  of  reli- 
gious science.  Twenty  centuries  before  the  modern 
forms  of  physical  science  were  born,  religious  science 
made,  as  she  yet  makes,  the  dateless  and  eternal  noon 
of  axioms  her  soul. 

I  find  no  form  of  materialism,  old  or  new,  that  car- 
look  into  the  authority  which  dazzled  Socrates,  and 
retain  steadfastness  of  gaze. 

What  is  the  newest  form  of  materialism?  That 
of  Professors  Bain  and  Tyndall,  and  that  which  is 
adopted,  in  a  large  degree,  by  Huxley  and  Spencer, 
and,  almost  without  qualification,  by  Hackel.  You 
know  that  St.  George  Mivart  calls  Huxley  Hackel's 
Alter  Ego  (Contemporary  Evolution).  No  man  doubts 
that  Hackel,  i.i  spite  of  his  protestations,  is  a  materi- 
alist, or  one  who  believes  that  there  is  but  a  single 
substance  in  the  universe,  namely,  matter.  "  The 
will  is  never  free "  's  HackePs  constant  teaching ; 
and  to  his  amazingly  narrow  philosophy,  which  Ger- 
many discards,  "  God  is  necessity  "  only,  and  has  "  no 


222  BIOLOGY. 

freedom  of  choice."  Huxley  quietly  holds  many  of 
Hackers  philosophical  opinions,  but  expresses  them 
with  far  less  boldness  on  their  offensive  side  than 
Hiickel  does.  When  it  is  asserted  that  Herbert 
Spencer's  positions  are  not  of  materialistic  tendency, 
let  a  competent  witness  be  called,  say  Thomas  Raw- 
son  Birks,  professor  of  moral  philosophy  in  Cam- 
bridge University,  England.  This  trained  and  in- 
dorsed scholar  has  just  sent  to  us  across  the  sea  a 
work  of  beautiful  clearness  and  candor,  entitled 
"  Modern  Physical  Fatalism,  and  the  Doctrine  of 
Evolution,  including  an  Examination  of  Mr.  H. 
Spencer's  First  Principles."  The  "  Fatalistic  Philos- 
ophy and  Doctrine  of  Evolution  as  unfolded  ly  Spen- 
cer "  he  regards  as  "  radically  unsound,  full  of  logical 
inconsistency  and  contradiction,  flatly  opposed  to  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity,  and  even  to 
the  very  existence  of  moral  science  "  (Preface,  Sept. 
28,  1876).  You  must  not  allow  yourself  to  think 
that  the  highest  philosophical  authority  in  Cam- 
bridge in  England,  and  the  highest  in  Cambridge  in 
America,  are  really  of  two  opinions  as  to  any  philos- 
ophy that  is  predominantly  Spencerian.  Is  it  main- 
tained that  Huxley  is  not  a  materialist  in  any  sense, 
because  he  has  said  that  he  is  not  in  some  senses  of 
that  word  of  many  meanings  ?  What  are  his  defini- 
tions ?  Who  is  it  that  teaches  in  so  many  words,  in 
his  latest  and  most  deliberate  utterance  (HUXLEY, 
Encyc.  Brit,  art.  "Biology,"  1875),  that  "a  mass  of 
living  protoplasm  is  simply  a  molecular  machine,  the 
total  results  of  the  working  of  which,  or  its  vital  phe- 


BAIN'S  MATERIALISM.  223 

nomena,  depend,  on  the  one  hand,  on  its  construc- 
tion, and,  on  the  other,  upon  the  energy  supplied  to 
it ;  and  to  speak  of  vitality  as  any  thing  but  the  name 
of  a  series  of  operations  is  as  if  one  should  talk  of  the 
horologity  of  a  clock"?  If  that  is  not  materialism, 
what  is  ?  How  much  more  space  does  that  definition 
leave  for  freedom  of  the  will  and  moral  responsibil- 
ity and  immortality  than  is  left  by  Hackel's  more 
outspoken  but  not  more  sweeping  phrases  ?  That 
sentence  contains  both  Huxley's  and  Spencer's  cen- 
tral position.  But  every  redoubt  in  the  camp  which 
defends  the  mechanical  theory  in  biological  science  is 
riddled  and  ploughed  by  the  artillery  of  Hermann 
.Lotze  and  Wundt  and  Helmholtz,  and  all  the  best 
learning  of  Germany,  to  say  nothing  of  Scotland  and 
America.  Of  course,  the  English  materialistic  school 
must  pick  its  phrases  carefully.  It  often  says  it  is 
not  materialistic  ;  but  it  is  to  be  tested  by  its  defini- 
tions. Many  of  Huxley's  phrases  imply  not  only  a 
fear  of  arousing  the  aversion  of  scholars  to  material- 
ism, but  also  a  lack  of  intellectual  unity.  Tyndall 
and  Huxley  are  both  freely  accused  in  England  and 
Germany  of  metaphysical  incompetence.  On  the 
question  whether  certain  schools  of  thought  are  ma- 
terialistic or  not.  those  innocent  souls  who  cannot 
fasten  their  eyes  fixedly  on  definitions  will  find  all 
the  beaten  paths  of  modern  philosophical  discussion 
full  of  what  politicians  call  dust  for  the  eyes  of  the 
umvary. 

In  the  sea  of  axiomatic  truth,  materialism  swims 
with  fins  of  lead. 


224  BIOLOGY. 

1.  Bain's  and  Tyndall's  materialism,  which  is  the 
latest  and  subtlest  kind,  asserts  that  matter  is  "  a 
double-faced  unity,"  having  "  two  sets  of  properties, 
or  two  sides,  —  the  physical  and  the  mental;  "  but  is, 
nevertheless,    "  one   substance,"   and   the   only  sub- 
stance which  exists  in  the  universe  (BAIN,  Mind  and 
Body,  p.  196). 

2.  If  this  definition  is  correct,  it  follows,  that,  in 
matter,  physical  and  spiritual  qualities  must  not  only 
inhere,  but  co-inhere,  in  one  and  the  same  substratum. 
The  qualities  of  matter  and  mind  must  be  conjoined 
in  one  substance. 

3.  Among  the  fundamental  qualities  of  matter  are 
extension,  inertia,  gravity,  color,  form. 

4.  But  the  qualities  of  mind  are  the  antipodes  of 
these  qualities.     It  is  absurd  to  speak  of  the  exten- 
sion, inertia,  gravity,  color,  or  form  of  a  thought,  an 
imagination,  a  choice,  or  an  emotion. 

When  Caesar  saw  Brutus  stab,  and  muffled  up  his 
face  at  the  foot  of  Pompey's  statue,  was  his  grief 
round,  or  square,  or  triangular  ?  [Laughter.]  When 
Newton  conceived  the  idea  that  gravitation  is  a  uni- 
versal law,  was  that  thought  red,  or  brown,  or  violet  ? 
When  Lincoln  by  a  stroke  of  his  pen  manumitted  four 
million  slaves,  was  his  choice  hexagonal,  or  octagonal  ? 
Does  the  act  of  imagination  in  a  Shakspeare  weigh 
an  ounce,  or  a  pound  ?  These  questions  show  that 
the  terms  which  we  apply  to  matter  are  totally  inap- 
plicable and  meaningless  if  applied  to  mind.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

5.  Professor  Bain  himself  admits  that  the  organic 


BAIN'S  MATERIALISM.  225 

and  the  inorganic  are  not  so  widely  separated  as  mat- 
ter and  mind  ;  and  that  the  elements  of  our  experi- 
ence are  in  the  last  resort,  not  one,  but  two.  "  Mental, 
and  bodily  states  are  utterly  contrasted;  and  our 
mental  experience,  our  feelings  and  thoughts,  have  no 
extension,  no  place,  no  form  or  outline,  no  mechanical 
division  of  parts,  and  we  are  incapable  of  attending 
to  any  thing  mental  until  we  shut  off  the  view  of  all 
that  "  (BAIN,  PROFESSOR  ALEX.,  Mind  and  Body,  pp. 
124,  135). 

You  must  not  suppose  that  Bain  is  witless  enough 
not  to  recognize  the  distinction  between  mind  and 
matter  as  the  broadest  known  to  man.  His  work  on 
"  Mind  and  Body  "  I  hold  in  my  hand ;  and  it  is  one 
number  of  those  royal  and  very  disappointing  roads 
to  knowledge,  called  "  The  International  Scientific 
Series."  I  reverence  Professor  Bain.  He  has  written 
some  books  which  are  thorough,  and  will  bear,  in 
most  parts,  the  logical  microscope.  But  this  volume 
on  "  Mind  and  Body  "  seems  to  have  been  made  to 
order  and  in  haste.  Nevertheless,  it  is  the  Bible  of 
the  latest  English  materialism ;  and  now,  out  of  this 
freshest  revelation,  let  me  read  a  text  or  two. 

"  EXTENSION,"  says  Professor  Bain,' "  is  but  the  first 
of  a  long  series  of  properties  all  present  in  matter,  all 
absent  in  mind.  INERTIA  cannot  belong  to  a  pleasure, 
a  pain,  an  idea,  as  experienced  in  the  consciousness. 
Inertia  is  accompanied  with  GRAVITY,  a  peculiarly 
material  quality.  So  COLOR  is  a  truly  material  prop- 
erty: it  cannot  attach  to  a  feeling,  properly  so 
called,  a  pleasure  or  a  pain.  These  three  properties 


226  BIOLOGY. 

are  the  basis  of  matter;  to  them  are  superaddei 
Form,  Motion,  Position,  and  a  host  of  other  prop- 
erties expressed  in  terms  of  these,  Attractions  and 
Repulsions,  Hardness  and  Elasticity,  Cohesion,  Crys- 
tallization. Mental  states  and  bodily  states  cannot 
be  compared  "  {Ibid.,  pp.  125,  135). 

These  sound  very  much  like  Sir  William  Hamil- 
ton's phrases,  but  they  are  Bain's ;  and  yet,  turn  on 
to  the  last  and  most  emphatic  paragraph  of  this  book, 
and  you  find  a  proposition  at  which  Sir  William 
Hamilton  or  Hermann  Lotze  would  only  smile ; 
namely,  that  there  is  in  the  universe  but  "  one  sub- 
stance," which  has  two  "sides,"  —  whatever  that 
word  may  mean,  —  "a  physical  and  a  mental,"  and  so 
is  "  a  double-faced  unity."  "  The  arguments  for  the 
two  substances  have,  we  believe,  now  entirely  lost 
their  validity.  The  one  substance  with  two  sets  of 
properties,  two  sides,  —  the  physical  and  the  mental, 
—  a  double-faced  unity,  would  appear  to  comply  with 
all  the  exigences  of  the  case  "  {Ibid.,  p.  196). 

Not  if  the  nature  of  things  is  yet  as  dazzling  to  us 
as  it  was  to  the  eyes  of  Plato  and  Socrates-  and  Aris- 
totle and  Liebnitz  and  Kant  and  Hamilton ;  not  if 
axiomatic  truth  is  as  radiant  to  us  as  it  is  to  Lotze 
and  Helrnholtz  and  Wundt  and  Beale  and  Dana ; 
not  if  we  are  to  adhere  to  the  first  of  all  logical  laws, 
that,  whatever  stands  or  whatever  falls,  a  thing  can- 
not be  and  not  be  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same 
sense.  [Applause.] 

6.  If  matter  is  a  double-faced  unity,  having  a  spirit- 
ual and  physical  side,  there  must  co-inhere  in  one  and 


227 


the  same  substratum  extension  and  the  absence  of 
extension,  inertia  and  the  absence   of  inertia,  color 
and  the  absence  of  color,  form  *  and  the  absence  of. 
form. 

7.  To  assert  that  these  fundamentally  antagonistic 
qualities  of  matter  and  mind  not  only  inhere,  but  co- 
inhere,  in  one  and  the  same  substratum,  is  to  assert 
that  a  thing  can  be  and  not  be  at  the  same  time  and 
in  the  same  sense.     [Applause.] 

8.  This  limitless  self-contradiction  wrecks  in  this 
age,  as  it  has  wrecked  in  every  age,  the  pretence 
that  there  is  but  one  substance  in  the  universe. 

9.  We  know  incontrovertibly  that  there  are  two 
sets  of  attributes,  which,  as  diametrical  opposites,  can- 
not co-inhere  in  one  substance,  since  extension  and  its 
absence,  inertia,  form,  color,  and  their  absence,  cannot 
possibly  co-exist  in  one  and  the  same  thing  at  the 
same  time. 

10.  Every  attribute,  however,  must  belong  to  some 
substance. 

11.  Two  irreconcilably  antagonistic  sets  of  attributes 
must  belong  to  two  substances. 

This  proposition  is  as  venerable  as  the  sword  Ex- 
calibur  of  King  Arthur.  With  it  materialism  of  the 
older  forms  has  been  defeated  on  many  a  Waterloo 
of  philosophy  ;  with  it  materialism  in  its  newest  form 
has  no  battle  but  that  which  consists  in  flight  from 
its  deadly  edge. 

12.  The   axiomatic   knowledge,  we   have   of  two 
such  sets  of  attributes  necessitates   the  conclusion 
that  matter  and  mind  are  two  substances. 


228  BIOLOGY. 

13.  In  that  inference   from  self-evident  truth,  all 
forms  of  materialism  are  shown  to  be  absurd,  as  all 
forms  alike  assert  that  there  is  but  one  substance. 

14.  Professor  Bain's  fundamental  error  is  the  con- 
fusion of  "  dose  succession  "  with  "  union.11    He  asserts 
"  union  "  of  the  qualities  of  matter  and  mind  in  one 
substance  with  two  sets  of  properties.     He  endeav- 
ors, but   in  vain,  to  show  that  this  is  not  union  in 
place  ;  and  then  says  (Ibid.,  p.  137),  that  "  the  only 
mode  of  union  that  is  not  contradictory  is  the  union  of 
close  succession  in  time.11     Such  succession  is  not  union 
in  any  sense  that  can  justify  the  assertion  that  there 
is  but  one  substance  in  the  universe  with  two  sets  of 
properties. 

In  the  last  pages  of  this  weak  book,  Moleschott, 
Vogt,  and  Biichner,  whom  Germany  regards  as  little 
men,  are  mentioned  as  among  the  recent  bright  lights 
of  materialism.  Bain  admits  distinctly,  and  yet,  of 
course,  without  emphasis,  that  "  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  these  writers  are  in  the  ascendant  in  Ger- 
many.11 His  poor  sketch  of  the  history  of  materialism 
is  intended  to  show  that  this  system  of  thought  may 
expect  a  successful  future.  That  argument,  how- 
ever, with  many  others,  stumbles,  and  falls  flat  over 
his  concession,  that  the  most  intellectual  nation,  in 
which  philosophy  is  a  passion  with  scholars,  and 
which  has  given  to  this  subject  more  thought  than 
all  other  nations  combined,  repudiates  the  latest  as 
well  as  the  oldest  materialism. 

Gentlemen,  I  know  that  thus  far  in  this  address 
the  argument  is  metaphysical ;  but,  in  the  audience 


229 


of  scholars,  it  is  not  for  that  reason  useless.  Meta- 
physics is  simply  an  articulate  knowledge  of  the  neces- 
sary implications  of  axiomatic  truths,  and  is  not  only 
a  very  clear  and  exact  science  in  itself,  but  the 
mother  of  all  the  other  sciences.  We  must  reject 
either  self-contradiction  or  sanity.  We  must  adhere 
to  primary,  self-evident  truths,  or  fall  into  that  ulti- 
mate form  of  scepticism  which  knows  nothing  except 
that  it  knows  nothing,  and  does  not  know  even  that 
[laughter],  except  upon  the  evidence  of  these  very 
axioms  or  intuitions,  with  which  it  plays  fast  and 
loose.  The  man  who  does  not  know  much  is  a  great 
character  in  our  inquiring  but  unphilosophical  times. 
When  you  trace  a  mind  which  rejects  axioms  up  to 
its  last  refuge  of  oleaginousness,  or  ignorance,  or 
weakness,  you  can  ask,  "  Are  you  sure  that  you  know 
nothing  with  certainty  ?  "  —  "  Yes,"  he  replies,  "  I 
am  sure."  —  u  But  then  there  is  one  thing  you  know 
with  certainty."  — "  No :  I  am  sure  that  I  know 
nothing  surely."  —  "  But  how  are  you  sure  that  you 
are  sure  ?  "  Only  on  the  authority  of  the  axiomatic, 
self-evident  truths  which  dazzled  the  eagle  eyes  of 
the  Acropolis ;  are  presupposed  in  all  reasoning  ;  and 
are  imbedded  not  only  in  the  human  mind,  but  in  the 
very  nature  of  things.  Every  change  must  have  a 
cause.  The  whole  is  greater  than  a  part.  Mind  ex- 
ists. Matter  exists.  A  thing  cannot  be  and  not  be 
at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  sense.  A  straight 
line  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two  points. 
These  are  a  few  of  the  renowned  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, first  truths,  axioms,  intuitions,  eternal  tests  of 


230  BIOLOGY. 

verity,  of  which  metaphysics  gives  the  list ;  and  tc 
conscientious  consistency  with  these,  it  is  the  duty 
of  religious  science,  which  first  elaborately  studied 
axioms,  to  hold  mercilessly  all  other  sciences  and 
herself. 

Curiously,  and  yet  not  curiously,  physiology  ai:d 
metaphysics  tell  the  same  tale  whenever  they  speak 
on  the  same  points.  To  test  one  science  by  another 
is  the  most  important,  and,  intellectually,  the  most 
delicious,  of  all  arts.  Let  us  turn  now  to  physical, 
concrete  facts  again,  and  observe  the  coincidence  of 
their  testimony  with  that  of  the  primary  mental  facts 
or  axioms.  In  the  field  of  modern  physiological 
research,  materialism  fails  through  hopeless  and 
practically  measureless  self-contradiction. 

1.  If  matter   is   a   double-faced   unity,   having   a 
spiritual  and  physical  side,  and  is  the  only  substance 
that  exists  in  the  universe,  then,  in  matter,  spiritual 
and   physical   qualities   must   not   only  inhere,   but 
co-inhere,  in  the  same  substratum. 

2.  It  must  be  true  of  every  atom  of  matter  that 
it  has  a  spiritual  and  a  physical  side. 

3.  In  every  atom,  therefore,  spiritual  and  physical 
qualities  must  be  found  so  inseparably  conjoined,  that 
the  one  side  cannot  be  conceived  to  be  taken  away 
without  carrying  the  other  side  with  it. 

"  4.  If  this  be  the  true  character  of  matter,  then  the 
physiological  activities  of  the  atoms  must  be  at  least 
co-extensive  with  the  psychological  activities  dis- 
played in  connection  with  those  atoms ;  that  is,  loth 
the  psychical  and  physical  sides  of  the  one  substance- 


BAIN'S  MATEBIALISM.  231 

matter  must  go  together,  and,  if  the  latter  be  removed 
from  any  grouping  of  atoms,  the  former  must  go  with 
them. 

5.  According  to  this  newest  materialistic  definition 
of  matter,  the  physiological  activities  of  the  brain 
must  be  in  this  sense  co-extensive  with  its   psycho- 
logical activities. 

6.  But  according  to  the  experiments   of  Ferrier, 
Fritsch,  and   Hitzig,  one  whole  hemisphere   of  the 
brain  may  be  taken   away,  and   one-half  the   body 
paralyzed  in  consequence,  and  yet  the  mental  opera- 
tions remain  complete. 

7.  "The  physiological  activities  of  the  brain  are 
not  co-extensive  with  its  psychological  activities." 

This  is  Ferrier's  own  language,  of  which  he  does 
not  seem  to  see  the  philosophical  importance. 

8.  Matter,  therefore,  is  physiologically  demonstrat- 
ed  not  to  be  a  double-faced  unity  with  inseparably 
conjoined  spiritual  and  physical  properties. 

9.  But  the  psychological  changes  taking  place  in 
the  mind  must  have  an  adequate  course. 

Evolution  equals  involution.  There  cannot  be  in 
the  effect  what  does  not  exist  in  the  cause :  if  there 
could  be,  there  would  be  an  effect  without  a  cause. 

10.  The    adequate    cause    of    the    psychological 
changes  taking  place  in  the  mind  does  not  exist  in 
the  physiological  changes  going  forward  in  the  brain  ; 
foi    other  things  being  equal,  effects  must  vary  when 
ihkir  causes  vary ;  and  the  half  of  the  brain  may  be 
token  away,  and  the  mind  yet  perform  with  complete- 
ness all  its  operations. 


232  BIOLOGY. 

Many  writers  have  taught  that  the  connection  of 
cause  and  effect  maybe  tested  in  three  ways, — either 
by  taking  away  the  cause,  and  noticing  that  the  effect 
ceases ;  or  by  introducing  the  cause,  and  noticing 
that  the  effect  springs  up ;  or  by  making  the  cause 
vary,  and  noticing  that  the  effect  varies.  We  cannot 
take  the  moon  out  of  the  heavens,  and  we  cannot 
dip  the  tides  out  of  the  sea ;  and  so,  in  regard  to  the 
tidal  motions  of  the  ocean,  we  cannot  apply  the  first 
two  of  these  tests.  But  we  can  use  the  third ;  for  we 
notice,  that,  when  the  sun  and  moon  are  in  conjunc- 
tion, the  tides  are  higher  than  at  other  seasons.  We 
observe  that  the  tides  follow  the  moon,  and  always 
vary  according  to  its  position.  Now,  this  is  precisely 
the  test  that  I  apply  in  reading  under  the  law  of 
causation  the  philosophical  import  of  the  latest. phy- 
siological facts.  We  cannot  take  apart  the  body  and 
soul,  and  then  bring  them  into  conjunction,  noticing 
first  the  effect  of  their  separation,  and  then  that  of 
their  union  ;  but  we  can  cause  the  one  to  vary 
somewhat,  and  notice  the  variation,  or  absence  of 
variation,  in  the  other.  We  take  away  a  hemisphere 
of  the  brain,  arid  do  not  produce  the  variation  in  the 
mind  which  it  is  perfectly  clear  ought  to  follow  if 
materialism  is  true.  Bain's  pretence,  that  the  an- 
tagonistic qualities  of  matter  and  mind  inseparably 
co-inhere  in  one  substance-matter,  is  inconsis  tent  with 
such  a  fact  as  Ferrier  brings  before  the  world,  when 
he  says,  as  all  physiologists  say,  that  you  may  take 
half  a  brain  away,  paralyzing  half  the  body,  and  yet 
leave  the  mental  operations  —  memory,  imagination, 


BAIN'S  MATERIALISM.  233 

affection,  choice,  reason,  perception,  the  whole  list 
of  faculties  —  complete.  We  vary  the  supposed 
cause,  and  the  supposed  effect  does  not  vary;  and 
this  is  proof  that  it  is  not  an  effect. 

It  is  to  be  expected  that  a  small  diminution  of 
vigor  in  mental  action  may  follow  the  taking-away  a 
hemisphere  of  the  brain ;  but  in  a  large  brain  this 
effect  is  hardly  perceptible.  Take  away  half  the 
force  of  the  bellows  of  your  organ  yonder,  and  your 
anthem  proceeding  from  the  organ  is  less  loud ;  but  all 
its  notes  and  rhythms  remain.  In  the  brain  is  your 
anthem  in  the  bellows,  or  in  the  musician's  fingers  ? 
Materialism  is  a  stupid  peasant  that  forever  stands 
behind  the  organ,  and  can  see  only  the  bellows,  and 
never  the  musician ;  and  asserts,  when  the  latter 
wears  Gyges'  ring,  that  he  does  not  exist,  and  so 
would  blunderingly  account  for  the  anthem  by  the 
bellows  and  organ  alone. 

11.  As  the  adequate  cause  of  physiological  changes 
in  the  mind  cannot  be  found  in  matter,  it  must  exist 
outside  of  matter. 

Hermann  Lotze  is  forever  reiterating  as  the  great 
maxim  of  his  philosophy,  "  Exceptionally  wide  in 
the  universe  is  the  extent,  entirely  subordinate  is  the 
mission,  of  mechanism."  This  is  the  keynote  of  the 
deepest  philosophy  of  Germany  at  this  moment,  that 
mechanism  is  to  be  found  everywhere  in  the  universe, 
but  that  it  is  everywhere  the  horse,  and  not  the  rider. 
"  Exceptionally  wide  in  the  brain,"  Hermann  Lotze 
would  say,  "  is  the  extent,  but  wholly  subordinate  is 
the  mission,  of  the  nervous  mechanism." 


234  BIOLOGY. 

We  must  remember  that  this  very  mec'nanism,  the- 
known  origin  of  which  is  left  in  such  mystery  by  ma- 
terialists, is  woven  by  the  bioplasts  with  a  sufficient 
cause  behind  them.  We  must  study  that  cause  by 
its  phenomena,  as  we  study  any  other  object  in  Na- 
ture. As  many  unprejudiced  students  as  have  seen 
Lionel  Beale's  preparations  and  exhibitions  of  tis- 
sues under  the  microscope,  have,  he  says,  hopelessly 
abandoned  materialism. 

A  fascination  not  easily  described  attends  the 
study  of  living  movements  under  the  microscope,  as 
a  kind  of  conviction  there  comes  to  you,  which  no 
diagrams  convey,  that  life  and  mechanism  are  two 
things.  I  am  properly  conscious  of  the  fact  that  I 
am  no  microscopist.  Perhaps  I  had  better  reveal, 
however,  that  it  happens  that  I  have  the  opportunity 
to  use,  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  what  I  sup- 
pose to  be  by  far  the  best  microscope  in  Boston.  It 
belongs  to  a  professor,  a  physician,  who  has  made  his- 
tology a  specialty,  and  who  was  so  kind  as  to  invite 
me  to  use  his  magnificent  instrument.  It  is  what 
the  books  call  a  one-seventy-fifth  objective ;  and  the 
highest  power  Beale  is  using  is  only  a  one-fiftieth. 
This  prince  among  microscopes  is  in  Tremont  Tem- 
ple building  now ;  and  it  shows  a  white  blood  cor- 
puscle nearly  as  large  as  the  silver  piece  called  a 
sixpence  ;  and  even  Lionel  Beale's  best  instruments 
show  it  hardly  larger  than  a  three-cent  piece.  Dis- 
sections of  brains  are  offered  to  my  inspection  fre- 
quently ;  and,  although  I  have  110  right  as  a  student 
of  religious  science  to  do  so,  I  seize  eagerly  every 


235 

opportunity  to  study  the  physiological  side  of  phi- 
losophy as  one  part  of  religious  science.  Let  me  say 
that  only  the  other  evening,  in  this  very  Temple,  in 
company  with  experts  who  all  believed  in  Lionel 
Beale,  and  not  in  the  mechanical  theory  of  Hackel,  I 
saw  living  bioplasm  pass  and  repass  through  the  field 
of  this  exceptionally  excellent  instrument.  I  had  read 
all  Beale  says  of  bioplasmic  movements;  I  had  im- 
pressed upon  myself  the  intricacy  of  the  work  done 
by  the  bioplasts;  I  had  minutely  studied  the  best 
colored  plates ;  and  I  thought  I  knew  something  of 
the  difference  between  the  action  of  life  and  that  of 
merely  physical  force  :  but,  when  I  saw  bioplasm 
itself  in  movement  [such  as  is  represented  here],  I 
felt  myself  in  the  presence  of  an  entirely  new  reve- 
lation of  the  inadequacy  of  materialism,  with  all  its 
prate  about  chemical  forces,  to  account  for  the  weav- 
ing, I  will  not  say  of  a  brain,  an  eye,  an  ear,  or  a 
hand,  or  of  nerve  within  nerve,  and  of  bone  beneath 
muscle,  but  of  the  humblest  and  simplest  living  fibre 
that  ever  a  bioplast  spun. 

Think  of  the  various  activities  of  the  one  sub- 
stance bioplasm !  The  fluid  that  lubricates  the  eye 
is  thrown  off  by  the  same  matter  that  constructs 
bone.  The  muscle  and  the  tendon  are  woven  on  one 
loom.  Take  that  which  you  drink  at  your  tables, 
and  call  milk,  and  what  is  it  but  smooth  cell-walls 
thrown  off  by  the  bioplasts,  and  now,  in  their  ab- 
sence, sliding  over  each  other  as  a  beautiful  fluid  ? 
What  is  this  instrument  of  three  thousand  strings, 
which  we  call  the  ear,  but  a  mass  of  cell-walls  woven 


236  BIOLOGY. 

together  by  bioplasts  ?  How  are  we  to  account  for 
the  miraculous  retina  and  lenses  of  the  eye  ?  They 
came  from  the  same  loom  that  weaves  the  brain. 
Sow  is  such  variety  of  effects  to  be  accounted  for  with 
no  variety  of  mechanism  ? 

12.  Outside  of  matter  is  to  be  found  only  what  is 
not  matter,  that  is,  an  immaterial  cause. 

13.  The  existence  of  that  cause  is  demonstrated 
by  the  application  of  the  axiomatic  truth,  that  every 
change  must  have  an  adequate  cause. 

14.  This   same  law  demonstrates   the   externality 
and  independence  of  this  cause  in  its  relations  to  the 
cerebral  mechanism. 

15.  The  relation  of  this  immaterial  agent  to  the 
body,  therefore,  is  that  of  a  harper  to  a  harp,  or  of 
a  rower  to  a  boat,^,nd  not  that  of  harmony  to  a  harp. 

16.  The    dissolution    of   the   brain,  therefore,  no 
more  implies  the  dissolution  of  the  soul  than  that  of 
a  musical  instrument  does  that  of  an  invisible  musi- 
cian who  plays  upon  it,  or  that  of  a  boat  does  that 
of  the  rower. 

17.  Death,  therefore,  does  not  end  all.     Therefore, 
for  the  third  time,  by  an  independent  line  of  argu- 
ment purely  physiological,  we  conclude,  — 

18.  If  death  does  not,  what  does  or  can?     [Ap- 
plause.] 

To  outline  now  a  third  argument,  let  me  ask  you 
to  notice  in  all  their  relations  to  each  other  this 
series  of  propositions  :  — 

1.  It  is  a  physiological  fact  that  every  human 
being  once  breathed  by  a  membrane,  then  by  gills, 


BAIN'S  MATERIALISM.  237 

then  by  lungs,  and  once  had  no  heart,  and  then  a 
heart  with  but  one  cavity,  and  then  a  heart  of  four 
cavities  (DRAPER,  Physiology,  p.  550). 

2.  The    particles    of    the    body   are    continually 
changing. 

3.  In  the  metamorphoses  of  insects,  not  only  are 
the  particles  of  the  body  changed,  but  its  entire  plan 
is  altered. 

Will  you,  my  friends,  but  picture  to  yourselves  the 
change  of  plan  which  must  be  made  when  a  creeping 
creature  is  transformed  into  a  flying  one?  Your 
beautiful  tropical  butterfly  was  once  a  repulsive 
chrysalid.  It  had  only  the  power  of  crawling.  But 
the  bioplasts  wove  it.  Little  points  of  transparent, 
structureless  matter  were  moving  in  it,  were  throw- 
ing off  cell-walls  in  it,  and  bringing  these  walls  into 
the  shape,  now  of  a  tendon,  now  of  a  muscle,  now  of 
a  nerve,  and  so  completing  the  whole  marvellous  plan 
of  a  crawling  creature ;  disgusting  in  our  first  sight, 
a  miracle  at  the  second.  But  now  these  same  bio- 
plasts, which,  according  to  materialism,  have  nothing 
at  all  behind  them  but  chemical  forces,  suddenly  catch 
a  new  and  very  brilliant  idea,  namely,  that  they  will 
weave  a  flying  creature.  [Laughter  and  applause.] 
Whence  comes  that  ?  Out  of  matter  ;  for  matter  has 
a  physical  and  a  spiritual  side.  They  thereupon, 
without  any  new  environment,  with  the  same  sun 
above  them,  and  the  same  earth  underneath  them, 
and  the  same  food,  begin  to  execute  a  wholly  new 
plan,  or  rather  to  carry  out  one  held  in  reserve 
from  the  first.  They  weave  anew;  there  appears 


288  BIOLOGY. 

within,  and  rising  out  of,  the  creeping,  odious  worm, 
your  gorgeous  tropical  butterfly ;  and  lie  is  the  same. 
There  is  identity  between  that  flying  creature  and 
that  creeping  creature.  Are  they  two,  or  one  ?  You 
breathed  by  gills  once ;  you  breathe  by  lungs  now. 
Is  your  identity  affected  in  the  change  ?  Your  bio- 
plasts wove  you,  so  that  once  you  had  a  heart  of 
one  cavity,  and  now  have  one  of  four.  Are  you 
the  same  ?  Is  your  identity  affected  through  all 
these  changes  ?  Every  few  months,  the  flux  of  the 
particles  of  the  living  tissues  carries  away  all  the 
particles  in  the  entire  physical  system.  How  do  we 
retain  identity  ?  Matter  has  a  physical  and  a  spirit- 
ual side,  indeed.  While  all  the  matter  that  composed 
my  body  has  gone  in  the  flux  of  growth,  I  am  I,  how- 
ever. I  have  an  ineradicable  conviction  that  I  am 
the  same  person  that  I  was  years  ago ;  and  yet,  years 
ago,  there  was  not  in  my  body  a  particle  that  is  now 
there.  I  have  an  ineradicable  conviction  that  the 
butterfly  is  identical  with  the  crawling  worm ;  but 
the  characteristics  of  your  worm  are  left  behind  when 
there  appears  in  the  worm  a  resurrection  to  a  new 
life.  [Applause.] 

What  if  your  butterfly  were  in  all  his  parts  as 
invisible  as  he  is  in  some  portions  of  his  wings ;  and 
what  if,  to  human  ken,  through  sight  or  touch,  there 
could  be  no  account  given  whatever  of  that  creature 
woven  out  of  the  loathsome  chrysalid  ?  What  if,  out 
of  that  discarded  organism,  were  to  arise  something 
eq  aally  glorious  with  the  butterfly,  but  wholly  invisi- 
ble, would  this  change  be  more  miraculous  than  the. 


BAIN'S  MATERIALISM.  239 

rising  of  that  visible  winged  creature  out  of  that  body? 
I  think  not.  If  Crod  can  lift  the  visible  out  of  the 
clirysalid,  may  lie  not  be  able  to  lift  the  invisible  also  ? 
Yes ;  but  you  say  that  this  is  Christian  materialism. 
I  beg  your  pardon :  I  know  what  thoughts  beyond  the 
reaches  of  our  souls  rise  for  utterance  as  we  face  life 
in  death.  I  do  not  assert  that  the  soul  is  material; 
nor  do  the  Scriptures  do  so,  where  they  affirm  that 
there  is  a  spiritual  body  as  there  is  a  natural  body. 
What  that  means,  I  need  not  here,  in  the  presence 
of  so  much  learning  greater  than  mine,  discuss ;  but 
I  do  affirm,  that  if  God,  instead  of  lifting  a  visible, 
were  to  lift  an  invisible,  flying  creature  out  of  the 
worm,  —  insect  or  man  !  —  he  would  perform  no 
greater  miracle  than  that  he  does  now.  Nothing 
more  inconceivable  would  it  be  to  lift  a  wholly  in- 
visible new  form  out  of  a  chrysalis  than  one  partially 
invisible.  The  change  need  not  be  greater ;  and  He 
who  can  do  the  one  miracle,  and  does  it  day  after 
day  before  our  eyes,  can  do  the  other. 

4.  In  all  the  flux  of  the  body  the  soul  retains  con- 
scious, personal  identity. 

5.  The  unity  of  consciousness,  and  the  sense  of 
continuous   personal  identity,  require  adequate  ex- 
planation. 

6.  Nothing  can  exist  in  an  effect  which  did  not 
previously  exist  in  the  cause. 

7.  Effect?;  must  change  when  causes  change. 

8.  If  conscious  personal  identity  were  an  effect  of 
the  matter  comprising  the  physical  organism,  it  ought 
to  exhibit  as  an  effect  the  same  flux  which  exists  in 
its  supposed  cause. 


240  BIOLOGY. 

9.  No  such  flux  is  observed  in  the  effect. 

10.  Therefore,  the  cause  of  the  sense  of  personal 
identity  is  not  to  be  found  in  the   matter  of  the 
organism. 

11.  As  only  matter  and  mind  exist  in  the  universe, 
that  cause  must  be  an  immaterial  agent  existing  in 
connection  with  the  physical  organism. 

12.  That  agent  is  known  to  consciousness,  and  is 
called  the  soul. 

13.  Its  existence  is  not  only  known  to  conscious- 
ness, but  is  demonstrable  by  the  law  of  causation 
which  requires  that  every  effect  must  have  an  ade 
quate  cause. 

The  unity  of  consciousness  and  the  permanence 
of  personal  identity  are  supreme  German  arguments 
against  all  forms  of  materialism. 

This  is  the  birthday  of  Thomas  Carlyle.  Eighty- 
four  years  ago,  in  the  stern  year  in  which  Louis 
XVI.,  Marie  Antoinette,  and  Charlotte  Corday,  went 
to  the  scaffold,  there  came  into  the  world  the  first 
prose  poet  of  our  time,  and  the  most  lofty  and  vivid 
imagination,  except  Richter's,  since  Milton.  Is  it 
not  fitting  that  on  this  day,  at  least,  we  should  listen 
seriously  to  a  man  who  has  thought  boldly,  and  with 
no  narrow  mental  horizon  ? 

"You  have  heard,"  says  Carlyle,  and  in  perfect 
freedom  from  all  bias  but  that  of  genius,  "  St.  Chrys- 
ostom's  celebrated  saying  in  reference  to  the  Shechi- 
nah,  or  ark  of  testimony,  visible  revelation  of  God 
among  the  Hebrews :  '  The  true  Shechinah  is  man.' 
Yes,  it  is  even  so :  this  is  no  vain  phrase ;  it  is  veri- 


BAIN'S  MATERIALISM.  241 

tably  so.  The  essence  of  our  being  is  a  breath  of 
Heaven.  This  body,  this  life  of  ours,  these  faculties, 
are  they  not  all  a  vesture  for  that  Unnamed  ?  We 
touch  Heaven  when  we  lay  our  hand  on  a  human  body. 
We  are  the  miracle  of  miracles.  This  is  scientific 
fact.  God's  creation  —  it  is  the  Almighty  God's. 
Atheistic  science  babbles  poorly  of  it  with  scientific 
nomenclatures,  experiments,  and  whatnot,  as  if  it 
were  a  poor  dead  thing  to  be  bottled  up  in  Leyden 
jars,  and  sold  over  counters;  but  the  natural  sense 
of  man  in  all  times,  if  he  will  honestly  apply  his 
sense,  proclaims  it  to  be  a  living  thing.  Ah  I  an 
unspeakable,  God-like  thing,  toward  which  the  best 
attitude  for  us,  after  never  so  much  science,  is  awe, 
devout  prostration,  and  humility  of  soul;  worship, 
if  not  in  words,  then  in  silence  "  (CARLYLE,  Hero 
Worship). 

Who  in  Boston  has  a  right  to  look  loftily  on  Car- 
lyle  ?  Macaulay  said,  but  let  me  only  whisper  the 
fact,  that  he  did  not  see  how  Prescott,  being  what  he 
was,  could  live  in  such  a  place  as  Boston.  Who  in 
any  American  editor's  chair,  or  in  any  college  in  New 
England,  is  authorized  to  look  condescendingly  upon 
Carlyle,  even  on  this  theme,  although,  forsooth,  he  is 
not  a  microscopist  ?  [Applause.] 


XI. 

AUTOMATIC  AND  INFLUENTIAL  NERVES. 

THE    FIFTY-SIXTH    LECTURE    IN    THE    BOSTON     MONDAY    LEC 

TURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN    TREMONT 

TEMPLE   DEC.   11. 


"  IT  is  certain  that  matter  is  somehow  directed,  controlled,  and 
arranged,  while  no  material  forces  or  properties  are  known  to  be 
capable  of  discharging  such  functions.  ...  I  believe  that  it  will  be 
found,  that  the  institution  of  the  series  of  preparatory  changes 
which  occur  previous  to  the  development  of  the  lasting  form  and 
structure  of  tissues  can  only  be  accounted  for  upon  the  supposition 
of  the  existence  of  a  power  capable  of  foreseeing  what  was  about 
to  happen,  and  of  determining  beforehand  the  arrangement  that 
would  be  most  advantageous  to  the  living  being,  and  able  to  pro- 
vide beforehand  for  requirements  that  it  was  foreseen  would  arise 
at  a  future  time."  —  LIONEL  BEALE,  Protoplasm,  pp.  306,  358. 

"  THE  laws  of  nature  do  not  account  for  their  own  origin."  — 
JOHN  STUABT  MILL,  Logic. 


PLATE  111.  (AFTER  BEALE  ) 
DISTRIBUTION  OF  ULTIMATE  NERVE  FIBRES  TO  MUSCLE. 


Distribution  of  finest  nerve  fibres  which  result  from  the  division  of  dark-bordered  nerve  fibres  to 

the  elementary  muscular  fibre*  of  the  thin  mylo-hyoid  muscle  of  the  liyla.or  greeu  tree  frog.   The 

diameter  of  each  muscular  fibre  is  lens  than  that  of  a  human  red  blood  corpuscle.     The  capillaries 

are  injected  blue,     x  1800. 


XL 

AUTOMATIC  AND  INFLUENTIAL  NERVES. 

PRELUDE   ON  CURRENT   EVENTS. 

IT  is  sometimes  sneeringly  affirmed  that  colleges 
teach  little  but  the  art  of  finding  where  knowledge 
is ;  and  yet  that  is  a  great  and  difficult  art.  In  the 
froth-oceans  of  weak  books,  it  is  a  high  service  to 
point  out  to  a  hurried  man,  on  any  interesting  theme, 
the  most  serviceable  volumes.  What  are  the  dozen 
best  English,  and  what  the  dozen  best  German  books 
on  biology  ?  In  response  to  many  inquiries,  verbal 
and  written,  let  me  attempt  an  answer  to  this  rather 
formidable  question.  There  are  few  or  no  good  books 
on  biology  older  than  1860.  Remember  that  the 
microscope  did  not  attain  its  power  to  furnish  facts 
of  a  scientific  character  for  the  basis  of  research  till 
1838.  So  fast  has  the  study  of  living  tissues  pro- 
gressed, that  it  may  be  said  that  all  the  conclusions 
reached  before  1860  either  have  been  or  will  be  modi- 
fied. I  therefore  can  recommend  to  you  nothing 
older  than  1860,  except  an  author  or  two  like  Schlei- 
den  and  Schwann,  who  began  the  investigations  of 
living  tissues,  and  whose  works  are  to  be  examined 
for  their  interest  as  historical  documents.  On  this 


246  BIOLOGY. 

theme,  as  on  so  many  other  philosophical  matters, 
the  best  books  are  German  ;  but  take  first  the  Eng- 
lish in  the  order  of  their  merit :  — 

1.  Beale,  Dr.  Lionel  S.,  "  Protoplasm ;  or,  Matter 
and  Life."     Third  edition  :  London,  G.  &  A.  Church- 
ill; Philadelphia,  Lindsay  &  Blackiston,  1875. 

The  style  of  this  work  is  attractive  for  its  clear- 
ness, grace,  and  force,  and  occasionally  for  a  keen, 
logical  humor.  It  is  not  always  that  a  physician  has 
literary  capacity ;  but  Lionel  Beale  is  a  good  and 
almost  a  brilliant  writer.  Besides,  he  has  had  a  lib- 
eral training  in  logic  and  metaphysics,  and  seems  to 
have  grasped  philosophy  as  a  whole  very  fully.  But 
the  charm  of  his  book  is  in  the  luminousness,  vivacity, 
and  power  produced  by  his  stalwart  grasp  of  his 
theme  as  an  origins  discoverer.  No  doubt  he  has 
added  more  to  the  knowledge  of  living  tissues  than 
any  living  English  author  within  the  last  twenty-five 
years.  It  does  not  become  me  to  state  here  what  pre- 
cautions I  have  taken  to  know  that  I  have  not  been 
misled  in  seeking  authorities  on  biology  ;  but  I  have 
taken  precautions  of  a  most  merciless  sort,  and  con- 
tinue to  take  them,  and  all  my  precautions  end  in 
giving  me  more  and  more  confidence  in  Beale  as  a 
man  of  candor  and  sense  as  well  as  of  science.  If 
you  can  buy  the  productions  of  but  two  authors  on 
biology,  purchase  the  works  of  Beale  as  the  best 
that  the  English  language  offers  you,  and  those  of 
Frey  as  the  best  that  the  translated  German  at  pres- 
ent affords. 

2.  Frey,  Professor  Heinrich,  Zurich,  "  Manual  of 


AUTOMATIC  AND  INFLUENTIAL  NEKVES.       247 

Histology,"  Leipzig,  1867;  and  "Compendium  of  His- 
tology," Zurich,  1876.  Translated  by  Dr.  George  R. 
Cutter.  New  York:  Putnam  Sons,  1876.  Frey's  two 
works  are  by  common  consent  placed  now  at  the  head 
of  German  works  on  histology. 

3.  Drysdale,  Dr.  John,  "  The  Protoplasmic  Theory 
of  Life."    London,  1874.     This  work   of  an   Edin- 
burgh  physician,   and   president    of   the    Liverpool 
Microscopical  Society  in  1874,  seems  to  stand  third 
in  order  of  importance.      It  does  not  adopt  Beale's 
conclusions  as  to  vital  force ;  but  it  accepts  his  facts, 
and  makes  a  strenuous  and  futile  effort  to  reconcile 
them  with  what  is  called  the  theory  of  stimulus. 

4.  Ferrier,   Dr.   David,   "  The    Functions   of  the 
Brain."     London  and  New  York,  1876.     This  work 
is  indispensable  to  any  one  who  does  not  read  Ger- 
man books  on  biology. 

5.  Tyson,  Dr.  James,  "  History  of  the  Cell  Doc- 
trine." 

6.  Carpenter,  Dr.  W.  B.,   "Mental  Physiology." 
London  and  New  York,  1874. 

7.  Beale,  Dr.  Lionel  S.,  "  How  to  Work  with  the 
Microscope."   New  edition.    Philadelphia,  1877. 

8.  Kollicker,    "  Manual    of    Human    Histology." 
Translated  by  George   Bush  and  Professor  Huxley 
for  the  Sydenham  Society,  1853. 

9.  Huxley,   Professor   T.    H.,   art.  on  Biology  in 
ninth  edition  of  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica." 

10.  Carpenter, "  Human   Physiology,"    ninth    edi- 
tion, 1876. 

11.  Draper,  Professor  J.  W.,  "Human  Physiology," 
1856. 


248  BIOLOGY. 

12.  Dalton,  Professor  John  C.,  "  Human  Physiol- 
ogy," edition  of  1875. 

Here  is  a  list  of  twelve  German  authors :  — 

1.  Lotze,  Hermann,  "  Mikrokosmus,"  3  vols,  1873. 
Lotze  was  born  at  Bautzen  in  1817.     He  was  gradu- 
ated at  Leipzig  in  1834,  in  both  philosophy  and  med- 
icine.    In  1842  he  became  professor  of  philosophy  at 
the  University  of  Leipzig,  but  since  1844  has  been 
professor  of  philosophy  at  the  University  of  Gottin- 
gen.      His  collected  works  are  to  be  recommended 
as  all  bearing  on  biology.     (See  art.  on  "  Hermann 
Lotze,"  in  July  number  of  Mind,  1876.) 

2.  Ulrici,  "  Gott  und  die  Natur."     Halle,  1873. 
"  Gott  und  der  Mensch."     Leipzig,  1874. 

3.  Strieker,  "  Handbuch  der  Lehre  von  der  Gewe- 
ben  des  Menschen  und  der  Thiere.     Leipzig,  1868. 

4.  Hackel,  "  Generelle  Morphologic  der  Organis- 
men,"  1866. 

5.  Schultze,  Max,  "  Protoplasma  der  Rhizopoden," 
1863.     Read  all  of  Schultze's  works. 

6.  Neumann,  "  Ueber  d.  Zusammenhang  sog.  Mole- 
cularen  mit  dem  Leben  des  Protoplasma ;  "  Du  Bois- 
Reymond  and  Reichert's  "  Arch.,"  1867. 

7.  Kolliker,  "  Neue  Untersuchungen,"  &c.,  1861. 

8.  Kuhne,  W.,  "  Untersuch.  iiber  das  Protoplasma," 
1864. 

9.  Helmholtz,  "  Handbuch  der  physiol.    Optik." 

10.  Wundt,  Physiologic  des  Menschen. 

11.  Hitzig,  "  Untersuchungen  iiber  das  Gehirn." 

12.  Du  Bois-Reymond,  Ueber  die  thierische  Elec- 
tricitat. 


AUTOMATIC   AND   INFLUENTIAL   NERVES.       249 

Omitted  books  which  scholars  here  may  think  I 
ought  to  have  named,  would  probably  appear  if  1 
were  to  give  a  list  of  the  hundred  best  volumes. 

If  you  can  buy  but  three  books,  have  Frey's 
"Histology,"  and  Beale's  "Protoplasm,"  and  Lotze's 
"  Mikrokosmus." 

THE  LECTURE. 

If  Aristophanes  were  here  to-day,  we  perhaps 
could  give  him  no  better  entertainment  than  to  cause 
a  frog  to  utter  the  famous  words  of  one  of  this 
Greek  poet's  plays :  JBreJcekekex,  kodx,  kodx  (ARIS- 
TOPHANES, The  Frogs).  We  might  take  a  brainless 
frog,  and,  by  gently  stroking  its  back,  we  should 
produce  these  Greek  words,  uttered  automatically  by 
the  vocal  organs  of  the  amphibian ;  and,  as  often  as 
we  stroked  the  back,  we  should  insure  that  result. 
Goltz,  the  German  physicist,  who  has  lately  written 
an  elaborate  work  on  the  nerve-centres  of  frogs  (Func- 
tionen  der  Nervencentren  desFrosches,  1869),  says  very 
genially  that  the  batrachian  chorus  of  our  summer 
evenings  is  the  natural  proclamation  of  the  fact  that 
it  is  well  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  marsh  as  the 
sedges  and  the  ooze  stroke  their  backs  under  the  still 
stars.  I  am  not  supposing  our  frog's  brain  to  be 
removed  as  a  whole,  but  so  far  forth  only  as  the  tak- 
ing-away  of  what  are  called  the  .cerebral  hemispheres 
can  change  the  mechanism  of  the  complex  nervous 
mass  within  the  skull.  The  lower  nervous  centres 
in  the  spinal  column  and  in  the  neck,  and  just  above, 
remain  in  the  frog.  When  I  pinch  him,  thus  brain- 


250  BIOLOGY. 

less,  he  leaps.  When  I  place  the  miraculous  creature 
in  the  palm  of  my  hand,  and  turn  the  hand,  as  Hux- 
ley did  his  in  a  famous  public  experiment,  intended, 
but  riot  sufficient,  to  puzzle  the  world  as  to  the  free- 
dom of  the  will,  the  frog  keeps  position,  and  stands 
upon  the  back.  I  reverse  the  motion,  and  he  keeps 
his  place,  and  stands  upon  the  palm.  This  is  not 
an  effect  of  will  on  his  part,  but  of  the  life  which 
stands  behind  that  marvellous  automatic  mechanism 
which  his  bioplasts  have  woven.  I  put  him  in  his 
native  pool,  and  he  swims  the  instant  he  touches  the 
water.  On  reaching  the  shore,  however,  he  at  once 
becomes  quiet.  He  sits  there  hours  and  days ;  and, 
if  he  is  not  again  touched  by  some  external  force 
of  such  a  kind  as  to  irritate  his  automatic  nerves,  he 
will  seek  no  food,  and  will  continue  quiet  until  he 
becomes  a  mummy.  All  this  looks  as  if  the  frog 
were  an  automaton ;  and  so,  indeed,  he  is  when  the 
hemispheres  of  the  brain  are  taken  away.  But, 
when  these  hemispheres  are  present,  the  frog  seeks 
food ;  he  does  not  sit  in  one  spot ;  his  automatic 
croak  he  represses  when  a  stone  is  thrown  among  his 
watery  bowers  of  grass  and  reeds ;  he  has  multitudi- 
nous playful  ways ;  he  possesses,  in  short,  the  power 
of  self-direction.  All  this  he  loses  with  the  removal 
of  the  hemispheres.  The  animal  that  has  lost  these, 
however  great  its  remaining  automatic  power  may 
be,  will  not  seek  food,  and,  unless  artificially  fed, 
always  perishes  of  starvation.  There  appears  to  be 
nothing  like  choice  or  volition  left  in  the  frog  after 
the  cerebral  hemispheres  are  ablated. 


AUTOMATIC   AND  INFLUENTIAL  NEKVES.      251 

Take  a  fish,  and  remove  its  cerebral  hemispheres, 
and  you  will  find  that  the  same  great  contrast  be- 
tween automatic  and  influential  nervous  action  ap- 
pears. The  fish  swims  with  perfect  equilibration. 
The  stroke  of  the  fins  and  tail  retains  its  amazing 
precision.  But  the  mutilated  swimming  creature 
does  not  stop,  as  other  fishes  pause,  to  nibble  at  food 
here  and  there.  It  does  not  loiter,  as  its  companions 
do,  in  shaded  aqueous  couches.  It  flashes  not  up 
thence,  as  they  do,  to  catch  the  unwary  insect  in  the 
evening  or  morning  dusk.  The  brainless  fish  has  no 
capacity  to  play  in  spheral  rhythm  with  its  mates 
and  with  the  waves.  It  keeps  on  in  a  straightfor- 
ward course,  unless  turned  aside  by  some  obstacle ; 
and  does  not  pause  until  nervous  or  muscular  ex- 
haustion necessitates  rest.  That  fish,  too,  will  perish 
of  starvation  unless  artificially  fed.  It  has  no  tend- 
ency to  seek  food;  its  volitional  power  is  lost.  In 
this  case  of  the  fish,  a  very  different  law  would  seem 
to  be  exhibited  from  that  which  appears  in  the  case 
of  the  frog ;  and  yet  the  two  cases  are  to  be  explained 
by  precisely  the  same  contrast  between  the  automatic 
and  the  influential  nervous  arcs.  The  fish  has  a 
constant  stimulation  of  the  automatic  nerves.  The 
water  produces  reflex  movements ;  and  these,  so 
wisely  did  the  bioplasts  of  the  fish  weave  the  crea- 
ture, constitute  the  complex  act  of  swimming.  Your 
frog  sits  still  because  no  stimulus  is  applied  to  the 
automatic  nerves;  and  your  fish  swims  because  a 
prolonged  excitation  of  those  nerves  is  produced  by 
the  water.  But,  to  show  that  the  case  of  the  frog 


252  BIOLOGY. 

and  that  of  the  fish  are  parallel,  put  the  frog  into  the 
water,  and  he  will  swim  in  it  as  long  as  it  floats  his 
body.  He  is  an  amphibious  animal,  and  will  get  out 
upon  the  land  if  he  can ;  and  this  is  the  only  differ- 
ence in  the  case. 

Let  us  .remove  from  a  pigeon  the  central  hemi- 
spheres, and  we  shall  find  that  the  poor  bird,  when 
we  wave  a  fiery  brand  in  a  circle  before  its  eyes,  will 
follow  the  motions  of  the  light  with  its  head.  If  a 
fly  pauses  on  its  crest,  it  will  shake  off  the  intruder. 
Placed  on  its  back,  the  bird  will  regain  its  feet.  If 
it  walks  along  your  table,  and  .comes  to  the  edge,  it 
will  lift  its  wings  the  moment  this  action  is  necessary 
to  balance  its  form.  So  mysteriously  have  its  bio- 
plasts woven  this  flying  creature,  that,  when  the 
pigeon  thus  brainless  is  cast  out  upon  the  free  air,  it 
moves  there  with  its  accustomed  royalty,  as  if  in  its 
home.  But  when  left  at  rest  it  makes  no  spontane- 
ous movements.  This  brainless  bird,  like  the  brain- 
less frog  or  fish,  unless  stimulated  by  some  outward 
touch,  remains  forever  quiet,  never  seeks  food,  and 
will  become  a  mummy.  It  has  apparently  no  power 
of  originating  muscular  action.  It  possesses  the  lower 
nervous  arcs ;  but  you  have  taken  away  the  upper ; 
and  in  doing  this  you  have  taken  away  its  power  of 
originating  movements. 

Removal  of  the  hemispheres  from  a  rabbit  leaves 
the  animal  for  a  while  prostrate  ;  but,  after  a  varying 
interval,  it  exhibits  power  to  maintain  its  equilibrium 
on  its  legs  in  an  unsteady  manner.  A  loud  sound 
causes  its  silken,  sensitive  ears  to  twitch,  its  quiver- 


AUTOMATIC   AND  INFLUENTIAL  NERVES.      253 

ing,  aspen-leaf  body  to  start.  Its  flight,  once  begun 
under  proper  stimulation,  is  headlong,  bungling,  and 
blind.  If  left  to  itself,  it  will  seek  no  food,  remain 
fixed  and  immovable  on  the  same  spot,  and,  unless 
artificially  fed,  die  of  starvation  in  the  midst  of  plenty. 
It  has  no  capacity  to  originate  motion.  (See  FLOU- 
RENS,  LONGET,  and  VULPIAN  On  the  Results  of  the 
Removal  of  the  Cerebral  Hemispheres  in  Pigeons.  See, 
also,  FERRIER,  Functions  of  the  Brain,  chap,  iv.,  and 
CARPENTER,  Human  Physiology,  edition  of  1875,  pp. 
696,  697.) 

Gentlemen,  it  shall. not  be  my  fault  if  you  go  from 
this  hall  without  having  impressed  on  you  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  influential  and  automatic  ner- 
yous  mechanism.  Next  after  the  contrasts  between 
the  living  and  the  not-living,  and  between  matter 
and  mind,  that  distinction  is  the  most  important  and 
the  widest  in  biology.  These  three  colossal  distinc- 
tions all  not  only  inhere,  but  co-inhere,  in  the  very 
substance  of  the  science  of  the  relations  of  matter 
and  mind.  These  are  the  sublime  peaks  of  biology ; 
a-nd  on  them,  in  clear  days,  whoever  would  know 
the  landscape  of  modern  philosophy  and  of  religious 
science  must  wander  with  the  best  telescopes  well 
used,  and  pace  to  and  fro,  and  be  alone,  and  some- 
times kneel. 

Perfectly  coincident  with  metaphysics  is  physi- 
ology, whenever  the  two  speak  on  the  same  point. 
Physiology  shows  us  two  kinds  of  nervous  activities, 
—  one  automatic,  one  influential  —  I  might  say  voli- 
tional and  responsive,  but  I  anxiously  avoid  merely 


254  BIOLOGY. 

technical  terms  when  the  use  of  them  is  not  neces- 
sary. I  adopt  the  phraseology  of  Draper, '  influential 
and  automatic,"  rather  than  the  phraseology  of  Car- 
penter, "  volitional  and  responsive,"  because  "  influen- 
tial "  is  a  wider  word  than  "  volitional."  I  suppose 
that  the  will  does  originate  muscular  action  (CAR- 
PENTER, Mental  Physiology,  American  edition,  pp. 
378,  386,  391,  418).  But  the  will  is  not  the  whole 
soul.  I  believe  that  every  part  of  the  soul  is  "  influ- 
ential "  on  what  is  called  the  influential  nervous  arc. 
Every  finger  of  the  invisible  musician  who  wears 
Gyges'  ring,  and  which  we  call  the  soul,  touches 
some  point  of  this  board  of  whitish  gray  keys.  I  will 
not  name  the  activity  of  the  whole  set  of  fingers  on 
this  board  by  that  of  the  thumb  merely.  To  call 
this  whole  list  of  activities  volitional  would  be  to 
name  but  the  thumb,  when  we  have  reason,  imagi- 
nation, emotion,  all  acting  more  mysteriously  by  far 
than  the  swiftest  motion  of  your  Ole  Bull's  Norwe- 
gian fingers  on  the  strings  of  his  magical  instrument. 
Keep,  then,  this  distinction  between  the  influential 
and  the  automatic  before  your  mind  ;  remember  that 
volitional  and  responsive  are  other  words  for  the  same 
things,  and  you  will  find  that  the  great  contrast 
between  matter  and  mind,  which  is  so  prominent  in 
metaphysics,  is  equally  prominent  in  physiology. 

I  hold,  that  in  the  divine  language  in  matter,  as 
well  as  in  mind,  there  is  not  an  empty  word,  syllable, 
Better,  space  or  pornt.  By  and  by  the  time  will  come 
when  every  thing  in  the  universe  of  forms,  as  well  as 
in  that  of  forces,  will  be  found  to  be  significant,  — 


AUTOMATIC  AND  INFLUENTIAL  NERVES.      255 

doubly,  trebly,  quadruply,  infinitely.  It  is  safe  to 
maintain,  that  this  great  distinction  in  the  body  be- 
tween the  automatic  and  the  influential,  is  a  thing 
meant  to  indicate  to  us  the  contrast  between  neces- 
sity and  freedom,  fate  and  choice.  So  are  we  woven 
by  the  bioplasts,  that  a  part  of  our  actions  are  respon- 
sive to  physical,  and  a  part  responsive  to  spiritual 
stimulus.  Dr.  Carpenter  affirms  in  so  many  words, 
that,  in  the  nervous  mechanism,  "  the  vesicular  sub- 
stance has  for  its  office  to  originate  changes  which  it 
is  the  business  of  the  fibrous  to  conduct"  (Human 
Physiology,  edition  of  1875,  p.  587  ;  see,  also,  pp.  694, 
713,752).  "The  will,"  he  teaches,  "is  constantly 
initiating  movement.  The  distinction  between  vol- 
untary and  involuntary  movement  is  recognized  by 
every  physiologist "  (Mental  Physiology,  pp.  414, 
379 ;  see,  also,  On  the  Control  of  Habit  by  the  Will, 
pp.  366,  367  ;  On  its  Directing  Power,  pp.  386-391 ; 
and  On  its  Determining  Power,  pp.  423-428). 

It  is  Carpenter's  theory  that  consciousness  is  lo- 
cated in  the  sensory  ganglia,  which  lie  immediately 
between  the  influential  and  the  automatic  arcs,  and 
that  just  as  an  outward  physical  impulse  may  be 
transmitted  upward  through  the  automatic  nerves  to 
this  sensory  centre,  so  an  impulse  originated  by  pure 
spirit  in  the  cerebral  hemispheres  may  be  transmitted 
downward  to  the  seat  of  consciousness.  We  know 
what  the  nerves  of  the  external  senses  are  ;  but  Reil 
and  Carpenter  very  significantly  call  the  highest 
influential  mechanism  the  nerves  of  the  internal 
senses.  As  the  automatic  nerve  touches  light,  so 


256  BIOLOGY. 

the  influential  soul.  Mysterious  beyond  comment  is 
this  physical  contrast  when  regarded  as  a  first  letter 
in  the  alphabet  of  philosophy.  That  part  of  a  tree 
which  is  below  the  soil  is  not  more  different  from 
that  which  is  above  than  the  automatic  is  different 
from  the  influential  nervous  mechanism.  A  ship  be- 
low the  water-line  is  adapted  to  the  water,  and  above 
that  line  to  the  air ;  but  the  sails  and  rudder  are  not 
more  palpably  adapted  to  different  agents  than  the 
automatic  and  the  influential  nervous  arcs  in  man. 
As  well  as  we  know  that  a  sail  is  inert  without  wind, 
we  do  know  that  this  upper  nervous  arc  is  inert  with- 
out soul.  As  from  the  structure  of  the  sail  we  might 
infer  the  nature  of  wind,  so,  from  that  of  the  inert 
mechanism  of  the  brain,  Draper  and  Lotze  and  Beale 
and  Carpenter  say  we  may  infer  that  of  the  viewless 
spiritual  force  which  beats  on  it. 

What  can  prove  to  us  that  the  upper  arc  of  the 
nervous  system  has  that  behind  it  which  has  power 
to  originate  motion,  unless  it  be  the  fact  that  the  re- 
moval of  that  arc  takes  away  all  power  in  the  animal 
to  originate  motion  ?  There  is  the  effect ;  and  it 
ceases  when  the  cause  ceases.  I  ask  only  that  you 
should  apply  here  the  stern  law  of  Newton,  that, 
where  cause  and  effect  are  conjoined,  the  taking  away 
of  the  former  produces  the  cessation  of  the  latter. 
We  take  away  the  cerebral  hemisphere  of  the  fish, 
the  frog,  the  pigeon,  the  rabbit;  and  the  animals  in- 
variably become  mummies  from  the  loss  of  all  power 
of  originating  muscular  movements.  [Applause.] 

To  summarize,  then,  a  crowded  discussion,  let  me 


AUTOMATIC  AND  INFLUENTIAL  NERVES.      257 

in  the  name,  not  of  Draper  simply,  but  of  Beale,  of 
Carpenter,  of  Ferrier,  of  Lotze,  of  Frey,  of  Strieker, 
of  Kolliker,  of  Wundt,  and  of  Helmholtz,  affirm,  — 

1.  In  the  absence  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  the 
lower  nervous  centres,  of  themselves,  are  incapable 
of  originating  active  manifestations  of  any  kind. 

2.  An  animal  in  possession  of  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres exhibits  a  varied  spontaneity  of  action. 

3.  Very  palpably  this  is  not  conditioned  by  present 
impressions  on  the  organs  of  sense. 

4.  The   lower  nervous  centres,  if  they  are  taken 
alone,  are  concerned  in  automatic  or  responsive  ac- 
tions only. 

5.  The  power  of  self-conditioned  activity  the  hemi- 
spheres alone  possess. 

All  great  physiological  facts  reach  as  far  into  phi- 
losophy as  they  do  into  physiology.  May  I  state, 
under  appeal  for  correction,  that  theology  in  our 
times  has  a  physiological  side  ?  I  am  perfectly 
amazed  at  the  feeling  that  many  have,  that  a  special- 
ist in  religious  science  has  no  right  to  look  into  phy- 
siology. Why,  every  student  of  religious  science 
must  be  more  or  less  a  specialist  in  philosophy  ;  and 
philosophy  is  now  built,  not  only  on  the  investigation 
of  consciousness,  but  on  physiology.  At  Andover 
yonder,  in  the  course,  say,  of  a  crowded  year  given  to 
religious  truth  as  a  system,  fully  three  months  are 
devoted  to  what  is  called  natural  theology  ;  and  all 
the  six  lectures,  and  often  more  a  week,  turn  on  phi- 
losophy largely,  and  I  had  almost  said  exclusively. 
Till  the  existence  of  God  and  of  the  soul  is  demon- 


258  BIOLOGY. 

strated,  religious  science  does  not  take  up  the  topic 
of  biblical  evidence.  She  does  take  it  up  at  last, 
but  with  an  arm  of  resistless  strength,  when  at  last 
she  comes  to  the  close  of  natural  theology,  and  enters 
on  revealed.  Andover,  like  New  Haven,  like  Prince- 
ton, like  Edinburgh,  like  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
like  Heidelberg,  Halle,  Leipzig,  and  Berlin,  begins 
with  axioms,  with  self-evident,  first  truths,  asking  no 
man  to  believe  more  than  what  Aristotle  laid  down 
as  incontrovertible,  self-evident,  necessary,  axiomatic. 
On  the  basis  of  that  adamant,  having  proved  the 
existence  of  God  and  of  the  soul,  religious  Science 
finds  herself  in  an  attitude  to  ask,  What  are  the 
relations  between  the  two?  There  is  a  God,  and 
there  is  a  soul ;  and  it  must  be,  in  a  universe  made 
on  a  plan,  that  there  are  relations  between  the  two ; 
and  that  these  relations  do  not  depend  on  count  of 
heads,  or  clack  of  tongues.  The  universe  must  have 
conditions  of  salvation  in  it  if  it  is  made  on  a  plan. 
Religious  science  springs  out  of  the  universality  of 
law.  If  there  is  a  soul,  and  the  soul  is  made  on  a 
plan,  if  there  is  a  God  who  is  all  order  and  all 
holiness,  then  it  is  incontrovertible  that  there  are 
natural  conditions  of  salvation.  What  is  salvation  ? 
Let  us  have  a  definition.  Salvation  is  permanent 
deliverance  from  both  the  love  of  sin  and  the  guilt  of 
sin.  [Sensation.]  It  must  be,  that,  in  a  universe  in 
which  we  can  demonstrate  the  existence  of  a  living 
God  and  a  living  soul,  conditions  of  freedom  from  the 
love  of  sin  and  from  the  guilt  of  it  exist,  that  you  and 
I  cannot  change  by  ignoring  them,  or  voting  them  up 


AUTOMATIC   AND   INFLUENTIAL  NERVES.       259 

or  down.  The  government  of  the  universe  is  not 
elective.  Therefore,  it  is  fitting  for  us  to  begin  with 
demonstrating  axiomatically  the  existence  of  God 
and  the  existence  of  the  soul  in  order  that  we  may 
go  forward  and  learn  from  the  plan  of  the  two  what 
must  be  the  natural  conditions  of  their  harmony. 

Religion  a  science  ?  Yes,  assuredly ;  for  science 
is  simply  a  body  of  established  truth,  or  systematized 
knowledge,  reached  by  the  application  of  the  scientific 
method,  that  is,  by  definition  and  induction.  By  these 
processes,  which  religious  science  invented,  she  un- 
dertakes to  investigate  the  activity  of  the  highest 
zones  of  man's  being,  to  establish  right  conduct  upon 
the  nature  of  things,  to  ascertain  the  contents  of 
both  natural  and  revealed  truths,  to  illustrate,  in 
short,  by  all  that  can  be  known  to  man,  the  rela- 
tions between  the  soul  and  its  Author.  A  science? 
Yes,  certainly ;  a  result  of  the  use  of  the  scientific 
method ;  and  not  only  as  much  a  science  as  any 
other,  but  a  science  as  much  more  than  any  other  as 
a  view  from  the  top  of  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  is  a 
greater  outlook  than  the  view  from  any  slit  called 
a  window.  [Applause.] 

You  say  that  only  a  brick-maker  can  understand 
architecture.  Well,  I  cannot  make  brick ;  but  it  has 
been  my  specialty  for  the  last  ten  years  to  study  logi- 
cal, physiological,  metaphysical,  theological,  and  ethi- 
cal architecture.  It  is  trite  beyond  measure  to  say, 
although  some  sceptics  seem  never  to  have  heard, 
thai;  it  is  the  duty  of  every  theological  student  to 
know  with  uncommon  thoroughness  logic  and  meta- 


260  BIOLOGY. 

physics,  and  the  chief  results  of  the  most  advanced 
physiological  as  well  as  of  the  latest  exegetical  re- 
search. I  should  consider  myself  unfit  to  hold  up  my 
rushlight  before  religious  truth  anywhere,  if  I  had  not 
given  myself  to  these  topics  for  years,  not  only  under 
the  best  guidance,  but  with  the  freest  spirit. 

Michael  Angelo  never  learned  to  make  a  brick ; 
he  was  not  skilful  as  a  plumber:  but  he  had  some 
knowledge  of  architecture.  I  am  willing  to  compare 
with  Michael  Angelo's  knowledge  of  material  archi- 
tecture that  knowledge  of  logical  and  philosophical 
architecture  which  belongs  in  our  age  to  some  teach- 
ers of  religious  science  in  Germany.  A  man  may  be 
an  architect,  although  he  is  not  a  carpenter,  and  can- 
not fell  a  tree  skilfully,  or  hew  a  stone,  or  unroll 
lead  on  a  roof.  There  may  be  in  a  man  sound  judg- 
ment as  to  architecture,  although  he  knows  nothing 
about  making  brick.  I  revere  specialists,  and  am 
not  underrating  them ;  but  very  plainly  the  relation 
of  all  minor  specialists  to  philosophy  is  that  of  the 
contributors  of  material  to  the  architects  of  your 
St.  Peter's  or  your  Milan  Cathedral.  From  all  sides, 
material  comes  to  the  architect.  Each  specialist 
guarantees  his  own  material ;  but  the  architect,  by 
all  the  tests  known  to  man,  is  to  find  out  what  are 
good  and  what  are  bad  brick,  timbers,  granite,  and 
marble  ;  and,  whenever  the  sciences  agree  what  mate- 
rials are  good,  it  is  our  business  to  build  with  them 
the  temple  of  religious  thought.  [Applause.]  We 
have  a  right  to  do  this  if  we  understand  architecture. 
[Applause.] 


AUTOMATIC   AND   INFLUENTIAL  NERVES.       26i 

A  specialist  is  undoubtedly  a  king  of  research  in 
his  own  field ;  but  what  if  that  field  embraces  only 
molluscs,  or  scarabea,  or  the  dative  case  ?  A  special- 
ist may  have  a  wide  field.  Who  is  a  specialist  ?  I 
affirm  that  your  Michael  Angelo  is  a  specialist  as  well 
as  your  mere  brickmaker  and  plumber.  When  the 
minor  specialists  assume  an  arrogant  attitude  toward 
the  greater,  I  am  always  reminded  of  the  stone-cut- 
ters I  conversed  with  in  Story's  studio  at  Rome. 
"  We  made  this  Cleopatra,"  said  they ;  "  we  pro- 
duced this  Sybil ; "  and  so  through  twenty  resplen- 
dent works  of  art.  And  then  the  stone-cutters  added, 
as  a  matter  of  small  moment,  u  Our  modeller,  Mr. 
Story,  is  up  stairs."  Even  Ernst  Hackel  insists  upon 
it  (^History  of  Creation,  vol.  ii.  p.  349),  that  the  nar- 
rowness of  outlook  of  specialists  in  physical  science, 
and  their  inadequate  philosophical  training,  is  the 
worst  mischief  of  our  modern  scientific  discussion. 
Do  not  think  that  I  speak  from  prejudice  in  the  asser- 
tion that  there  is  no  profession,  unless  it  be  the  legal, 
better  trained  in  logic  and  philosophy  than  the  minis- 
terial. [Applause.]  I  am  aware  that  I  am  speaking 
before  an  audience  containing  many  scholars,  and  I 
am  anxious  never  to  violate  courtesy  here  toward 
learning  of  any  kind ;  but  I  do  not  know  where,  in  a 
course  of  medical  instruction,  any  physician  gets  that 
merciless  drill  in  logic  which  is  necessary  in  any  ade- 
quate theological  or  legal  professional  preparation 
and  career.  I  do  not  know  where  any  man  studying 
merely  with  the  microscope  and  scalpel  and  retort 
obtains  that  kind  of  literary  and  logical  and  philo- 


262  BIOLOGY. 

sophical  training  which  belongs  of  necessity  to  the  1»  « 
and  theology.  This  has  been  so  in  all  ages,  though 
we  undoubtedly  have  made  mistakes.  No  doubt  we 
have  sometimes  taken  brick  that  were  poorly  baked  ; 
and  I  think  that  is  our  chief  trouble  to-day.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

In  justification  of  the  five  propositions  thus  far  dis- 
cussed, let  rne  ask  you  to  listen  to  Professor  Ferrier, 
indorsed  now  by  Carpenter  and  Dalton  in  standard 
text-books  of  science.  "  One  fundamental  fact  seems 
to  be  conclusively  demonstrated  by  these  experiments ; 
viz.,  that,  in  the  absence  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres, 
the  lower  centres  of  themselves  are  incapable  of  origi- 
nating active  manifestations  of  any  kind.  An  animal 
with  brain  intact  exhibits  a  varied  spontaneity  of 
action,  not,  at  least,  immediately  conditioned  by  pres- 
ent impressions  on  its  organ  of  sense.  When  the 
hemispheres  are  removed,  all  the  actions  of  the  ani- 
mal become  the  immediate  and  necessary  response  to 
the  form  and  intensity  of  the  stimulus  communicated 
to  its  afferent  nerves.  Without  such  excitation  from 
without,  the  animal  remains  motionless  and  inert. 
It  is  true  that  some  of  the  phenomena  which  have 
been  described  would  seem  to  be  opposed  to  this 
view ;  but  they  are  so  in  appearance  only,  and  not  in 
reality.  .  .  .  Hence  the  phenomena  manifested  by  the 
different  classes  of  animals,  after  ablation  of  the  hemi- 
spheres, admit  of  generalization  under  the  law  that  the 
lower  ganglia  are  centres  of  immediate  responsive  action 
only,  as  contradistinguished  from  the  mediate  or  self- 
conditioned  activity  which  the  hemispheres  alone  pos- 
sess "  (FERRIER,  Functions  of  the  Brain,  pp.  40, 41). 


AUTOMATIC   AND   INFLUENTIAL   NERVES.       263 

Although,  from  the  course  of  his  education,  Ferrier 
might  be  expected  to  lean  toward  Plain's  philosophy, 
he  cannot  be  accused  of  cruderiess  while  he  main- 
tains that  the  distinction  between  matter  and  mind 
is  as  clear  in  physiology  as  in  metaphysics.  He  does 
that  in  this  very  significant  statement  of  facts  from  a 
physiologist's  point  of  view  ;  and  this  to-day  is  the 
freshest  word  on  our  theme  :  "  That  the  brain  is  the 
organ  of  the  mind,  and  that  mental  operations  are 
possible  only  in  and  through  the  brain,  is  now  so 
thoroughly  well  established  and  recognized,  that  we 
may,  without  further  question,  start  from  this  as  an 
ultimate  fact.  But  how  it  is  that  molecular  changes 
in  the  brain-cells  coincide  with  modifications  of  con- 
sciousness, how,  for  instance,  the  vibrations  of  light 
falling  on  the  retina  excite  the  modification  of  con- 
sciousness termed  a  visual  sensation,  is  a  problem 
which  cannot  be  solved.  We  may  succeed  in  deter- 
mining the  exact  nature  of  the  molecular  changes 
which  occur  in  the  brain-cells  when  a  sensation  is 
experienced ;  but  this  will  not  bring  us  one  whit 
nearer  the  explanation  of  the  ultimate  nature  of  that 
which  constitutes  the  sensation.  The  one  is  objec- 
tive, and  the  other  subjective  ;  and  neither  can  be  ex- 
pressed in  terms  of  the  other.  We  cannot  say  that 
they  are  identical,  or  even  that  the  one  passes  into  the 
other,  but  only,  as  Laycock  expresses  it,  that  the  two 
are  correlated  "  (Ibid.,  pp.  255,  256). 

Just  here  I  must  fulfil  my  promise  to  refer  to  a 
courteous  question  asked  me  in  print  (Daily  Adver- 
tiser, Nov.  29,  1876)  by  a  gentleman  who  thinks 


264  BIOLOGY. 

that  "  chemical  force  and  vital  force  are  cognate." 
That  is  his  language  ;  and  by  it  I  understand  him  to 
mean  that  the  one  is  kindred  in  origin  with  the  other. 
Certainly  he  does  not  hold  himself  in  such  an  atti- 
tude in  this  article,  that  he  can  be  exonerated  from 
the  grave  charge,  that  he  disagrees  with  Ferrier,  when 
the  latter  teaches,  as  Tyndall  affirms  also,  that  these 
molecular  activities  "  cannot  be  made  to  pass  into  " 
mental  activities.  Speaking  of  the  effect  of  "  tea  and 
coffee  and  phosphorated  food  in  oiling  the  wheels  of 
the  mind,"  this  Boston  writer  says,  "  Such  agents 
develop  chemical  force  without  question :  this  force, 
to  the  best  of  our  knowledge,  accelerates  the  wheels 
of  life,  and  it  is  every  way  proper  to  suppose,  that, 
doing  thus,  it  is  analogous  to  the  force  which  sets  the 
wheels  going ;  or,  in  short,  that  chemical  force  and 
vital  force  are  cognate."  He  then  goes  on  to  affirm 
that  the  "  impressions  "  coming  from  different  quar- 
ters "  are  to  the  individual  the  representative  of  the 
universe,  and  that  it  may  be  said  that  in  this  way  the 
universe  is  each  man's  tutor,  and  forms  his  soul." 
[Laughter.]  Gentlemen,  that  is  materialism. 

Let  us  test  this  typical  statement  by  a  parallel  case. 
The  reasoning  may  be  summarized  in  three  proposi- 
tions :  (1)  Chemical  force  accelerates  the  wheels  of 
life ;  (2)  Therefore  it  is  analogous  to  the  force  whicb 
sets  the  wheels  of  life  in  motion ;  (3)  Therefore  chem- 
ical and  vital  forces  are  cognate.  Now  let  us  paral- 
lel that  reasoning,  point  for  point,  for  the  sake  of 
clearness.  The  strong  current  in  the  Merrimack  or 
Charles  River  accelerates  the  motion  of  the  rower 


AUTOMATIC   AND  INFLUENTIAL  NERVES.       265 

in  his  boat.  It  is,  therefore,  every  way  proper  to 
suppose  that  the  force  of  the  current  is  analogous  to 
the  force  which  sets  the  oars  in  motion.  [Laughter.] 

I  beg  you  to  be  courteous,  gentlemen.  This  Lec- 
tureship has  but  one  motto,  "  The  clear,  the  true,  the 
new,  the  strategic."  I  do  not  first  seek  orthodoxy ; 
I  seek  first  clearness.  [Applause.]  A  man  who  sets 
before  himself  even  truth  as  the  first  object  is  likely 
to  make  truth  only  the  synonyme  for  his  own  opin- 
ion. Let  us  seek  first  clearness,  whether  the  heavens 
stand  or  fall.  [Applause.] 

To  proceed,  then :  the  force  in  the  current  accel- 
erates the  motion  of  the  rower  in  his  boat :  therefore 
it  is  every  way  proper  to  suppose  that  it  is  analogous 
to  the  force  that  sets  the  oars  in  motion ;  and  there- 
fore the  force  of  the  current  and  the  force  that  moves 
the  oars  are  cognate.  [Laughter.] 

But  this  is  not  all ;  for,  to  make  the  parallel  com- 
plete, we  must  assert  that  the  force  that  moves  the 
currents  and  the  force  that  moves  the  oars  are  cog- 
nate in  such  a  sense,  that,  when  all  things  are  fairly 
stated,  it  must  be  conceded  that  the  force  that  moves 
the  currents  "  forms "  the  force  which  moves  the 
oars.  [Applause.] 

Undoubtedly  the  rower  on  the  river  is  aided  by 
the  currents,  and  so,  undoubtedly,  is  the  rower  called 
life  aided  by  currents  of  purely  physical  force  moving 
through  the  living  organism ;  but  to  say  that  from 
this  fact  we  must  conclude  that  the  two  forces  are 
cognate,  is  no  more  unreasonable  in  the  former  case 
than  in  the  latter. 


266  BIOLOGY. 

This  gentleman  thinks,  that,  at  one  point,  I  make 
a  leap  in  my  proof;  but  I  never  leaped  across  the 
difference  between  the  current  in  the  river  and  the 
force  that  moves  the  oars. 

I  need  not  mention  in  detail  the  reasoning  in  an 
earlier  paragraph  of  this  criticism  ;  for  the  concessions 
made  to  me  there  destroy  the  criticism,  and  the 
whole  falls  when  the  word  "  cognate "  falls.  The 
gentleman  says  it  is  "  force  "  which  moves  that  por- 
tion of  the  brain  which  will  not  re-act  under  electrical 
stimulus.  I  say  it  is  "force,"  but  not  physical  force  ; 
for  this,  as  Ferrier  says,  cannot  be  shown  to  pass  into 
mental  force.  This  gentleman's  reasoning  to  prove 
that  it  does  so  pass  proves  astoundingly  too  much. 
The  force,  too,  must  be  one  adequate  to  account  for 
the  effect  produced. 

When  the  grave  assertion  is  made,  that  the  bellows 
yonder  accelerates  the  action  of  the  organ,  and  that, 
therefore,  it  is  perfectly  proper  to  suppose  that  its 
force  of  rough  wind  is  of  the  same  character  with 
the  will  of  the  musician  whose  fingers  touch  the 
keys,  -and  that,  therefore,  the  musician  was  Hown  out 
of  the  bellows,  we  come  to  a  vivid  view  of  the  logic  of 
materialism.  [Laughter  and  applause.] 

You  put  me  into  a  bad  mood,  gentlemen.  I  have 
heard  that  hypotheses  are  allowable  up  to  a  certain 
point,  but  that  there  does  come  a  time  in  logic  when 
there  must  be  an  end  of  hypotheses.  DeMorgan,  in 
his  logic,  tells  a  story  of  a  servant  who  was  to  pre- 
pare a  stork  for  dinner  for  his  master.  But  the 
servant  had  a  sweetheart;  and,  to  gratify  her,  he 


AUTOMATIC   AND   INFLUENTIAL   NERVES.       267 

cut  off  a  leg  of  the  stork  after  it  had  been  cooked, 
and  put  the  mutilated  bird  upon  the  table  of  the 
nobleman.  When  dinner  was  served,  the  nobleman 
called  the  servant  to  the  door  of  the  feasting-hall, 
and  said,  "  How  does  it  happen  that  this  stork  has 
but  one  leg?" — "Why,  sir,"  was  the  hypothesis 
used  in  answer,  "  a  stork  never  has  but  one  leg." 
No  more  was  said  in  the  presence  of  the  company; 
but  the  next  day,  before  the  nobleman  dismissed  his 
servant,  he  thought  he  would  see  what  further  hy- 
pothesis the  man  would  offer.  So  he  took  his  servant 
into  the  grounds  of  the  castle,  and  showed  him  the 
storks  standing  there.  "  See,"  the  nobleman  said, 
"  each  stork  has  two  legs."  — "  But  look  again,"  said 
the  servant,  "  each  stork  has  really  now  but  one ; " 
and  surely  each  was  standing,  after  the  manner  of 
his  bird,  on  one.  But  the  nobleman  shouted  to  the 
birds  with  a  frightening  gesture,  "Off,  away!"  and 
each  stork  ran  away  with  two  legs.  "  Yes,"  said  the 
servant,  who  did  not  lack  hypotheses ;  "  but  yesterday 
you  did  not  say, 4  Off  and  away ! '  to  that  stork  on  the 
table."  [Laughter.]  There  must  at  some  point  be 
an  end  to  hypotheses ;  but  materialism  saves  itself 
by  saying,  "  Off  and  away ! "  to  the  baked  stork. 
[Applause.]  Why,  the  poor  grave-digger  in  Hamlet 
knew  better  than  that ;  for  he  was  no  materialist. 
"  Who  is  to  be  buried  here  ?  "  said  Hamlet ;  and  the 
fool  answered,  — 

"  One  that  was  a  woman; 
But,  rest  her  soul,  she  is  dead." 

At  our  present  point  of  view,  we  need  only  name 


268  BIOLOGY. 

the  propositions  which  flow  from  the  latest  physio- 
logical research  :  — 

6.  Molecular  motions  in  the  nervous  system  are 
now  definitely  known  to  form  in  all  cases  a  closed 
circuit. 

7.  They  cannot,  therefore,  be  said  to  be  identical 
with  mental  activities. 

8.  They  are  only  parallel  with  them. 

9.  They   are    demonstrably  not    transmuted   into 
mental   activities,  but   only  correlated  with   them. 
Parallelism  is  not  identity :  the  keys  in  motion  are 
not  the  music  of  your  organ. 

10.  Materialism,  therefore,  fails  under  the  micro- 
scope of  physiology,  and  it   fails   equally  under   a 
strict  application  of  the  law  of  causation. 

The  externality  of  the  soul  to  the  nervous  mechan- 
ism is  just  as  well  known  in  relation  to  the  upper 
key-board  or  influential  arcs,  as  the  externality  of 
your  fingers  to  the  lower  key-board  or  the  automatic 
arcs,  is  known  in  these  experiments  with  the  frog  and 
the  pigeon,  the  fish  and  the  rabbit.  You  know  how 
those  motions  in  the  lower  key-board  are  produced. 
You  know,  therefore,  how  those  in  the  upper  are 
started.  Matter  did  not  start  them  there.  Matter 
does  not  start  them  here.  Mind  starts  them  here. 
Mind  starts  them  there.  We  are  conscious  in  our- 
selves of  power  of  choice,  and  that,  inner  witness 
must  be  combined  with  the  testimony  that  comes 
from  the  scalpel  and  the  microscope,  to  show  that 
the  powe\  of  self-direction  does  not  originate  in 
matter. 


AUTOMATIC   AND   INFLUENTIAL   NERVES.       269 

How  the  unextended  substance,  mind,  can  act  upon 
the  extended  substance,  matter,  is  a  mystery  ;  but  to 
affirm  that  it  does  so  involves  no  self-contradiction. 
What  is  a  mystery?  Something  of  which  we  know 
that  it  is,  though  we  do  not  know  how  it  is.  What 
is  a  self-contradiction  ?  An  inconsistency  of  a  pro- 
position with  its  own  implications.  That  mind  moves 
matter,  we  know.  How  it  does  it,  we  know  not. 
Sir  William  Hamilton  (PROFESSOR  VEITCH,  Memoir 
of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  p.  154),  in  his  efforts  to 
solve  this  mystery,  was  anxious  that  even  what  is 
called  mesmeric  force  should  be  investigated ;  and 
he  and  many  other  acute  minds  have  asked  whether 
it  may  not  be  within  the  power  of  the  human  will 
to  influence  another  human  will  across  the  street, 
across  the  city,  across  a  continent.  In  the  name  of 
exact  science,  many  seek  to-day  to  know  whether  by 
possibility  human  will  may  not,  in  some  cases,  make 
matter  move  by  willing  to  do  it.  I  hold  no  strange 
theory  on  this  theme ;  I  am  shy  to  my  finger's  tips 
of  even  the  conclusions  of  Carpenter  concerning  it. 
But  will  you  not  allow  me,  in  the  name  of  Sir 
William  Hamilton's  curiosity,  and  in  that  of  Presi- 
dent Wayland  of  Brown  University,  to  use,  merely 
as  illustration,  this  presumed  power  of  the  human 
will  to  move  matter  without  contact  through  other 
matter  ?  If  you  conceive  that  as  possible,  and  fairly 
within  natural  law,  then  natural  law  itself  becomes 
the  magnetization  of  all  matter  by  the  influence  of 
one  Omnipresent  Will,  in  which  is  no  variableness 
nor  shadow  of  turning.  As  our  wills  play  upon 


270  BIOLOGY. 

the  keyboard  of  the  influential  human  nerves, 
so  Omniscience  and  Omnipresence,  magnetizing  all 
worlds  and  their  inhabitants,  play  upon  all  infinities 
and  eternities.  [Applause.]  The  connection  of  the 
Divine  Will  with  matter  may  be  thus  obscurely  re- 
vealed to  us  by  that  of  the  human  will  with  matter. 
Each  is  a  mystery;  but,  if  these  two  are  kindred 
mysteries,  the  universe  is  one,  and  man's  passion  for 
unity  in  science  is  satisfied.  Matter  is  an  effluence 
of  the  Divine  Nature,  and  so  is  all  finite  mind,  and 
thus  the  universe  is  one  in  its  present  ground  of  ex- 
istence and  in  the  First  Cause.  In  a  better  age, 
Science,  lighting  her  lamp  at  that  Higher  Unity, 
will  teach  that,  although  He,  whom  we  dare  not 
name,  transcends  all  natural  laws,  they  are,  through 
his  Immanence,  literally  God,  who  was,  and  is,  and  is 
to  come.  Science  does  this  already  for  all  who  think 
clearly.  [Applause.] 


XII. 

EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMOETALITY. 

THE   FIFTY-SEVENTH    LECTURE   IN   THE    BOSTON    MONDAY 

LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN    TREMONT 

TEMPLE    DEC.    13. 


yup  OVK  kniora-rcu.  arof^a 
rd  dlov,  ti/Ua  TIU.V  eTr 


YLUS,  Prometheus  Sound,  1031. 

Otoc  av  rad'  IOTT]  rrjde,  prj  Oetiv  fiera." 

SOPHOCLES,  Ajax,  950. 


XII. 
EMERSON'S  VIEWS   ON  IMMORTALITY. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

WHICH  city  has  the  greater  right  to  an  attitude  of 
intellectual  haughtiness,  Boston,  or  Edinburgh?  In 
preparation  for  all  inspired  work  in  poetry  and  art, 
and,  much  more,  in  religion,  it  is  necessary  to  make 
the  palms  of  the  hands  clean,  and  to  shake  off  them 
the  glittering,  stout  vipers, — intellectual  pride,  vanity, 
and  self-sufficiency.  Has  Edinburgh  shown  a  greater 
decision  and  skill  than  Boston  in  dislodging  these 
wreathing  reptiles  from  her  fingers,  as  Paul  shook  off 
the  serpent  on  Melitus,  feeling  no  harm?  Is  Edin- 
burgh really  the  equal  of  Boston  in  culture  ?  Where 
is  there  in  this  city  a  better  metaphysician  than  Sir 
William  Hamilton  or  Dugald  Stewart?  Who  here 
has  advanced  exact  science  more  than  Black,  or  Play- 
fair,  or  Sir  David  Bre  \vster  ?  Is  there  a  better  politi- 
cal economist  here  than  Adam  Smith,  the  author  of 
"  The  Wealth  of  Nations  "  ?  Have  we  better  histo- 
rians than  Hume  and  Robertson  ?  Is  there  any  rheto- 
rician here  likely  to  be  more  influential  than  Hugh 
Blair  ?  Have  we  a  painter  superior  to  Sir  John  Les- 
lie, a  more  delightful  essayist  than  Thomas  DeQuincey, 

273 


274  BIOLOGY. 

a  better  writer  on  ethics  than  Sir  James  Mackintosh  ? 
What  literary  name  have  we,  on  the  whole,  superior 
to  that  of  Walter  Scott  ?  Can  Boston  produce  the 
equal  of  John  Knox  or  Thomas  Chalmers?  What 
periodical  of  the  same  class  have  we  better  than 
"  Blackwood's  Magazine,"  as  edited  by  a  Lockhart  and 
a  Wilson  ?  What  quarterly  have  we  here  in  Boston 
more  famous  than  "  The  Edinburgh  Review,"  with 
Francis  Jeffrey,  and  Sidney  Smith,  and  Homer,  and 
Macaulay,  and  Brougham  behind  it?  This  Edinburgh, 
true  to  the  deepest  inspirations  of  conscience  in  her 
Scotch  heart  and  intellect,  knelt  down  lately  on  the 
shore  of  the  North  Sea,  and  was  willing  to  have  her 
devotions  led  by  an  American  evangelist ;  and  shall 
Boston,  on  this  Puritan  and  Pilgrim  shore,  stand 
stupidly  stiff  when  asked  to  kneel  ? 

Dickens  wrote  in  his  last  years,  that  he  regarded  a 
Boston  audience  as  next  to  an  Edinburgh  audience, 
but  that  this  was  a  high  compliment  to  Boston ;  for 
he  regarded  an  Edinburgh  audience  as  perfect. 

What  if  Boston  in  1877  should  receive,  as  well  as 
Edinburgh  did  in  1874,  evangelists  thrice  more  em- 
phatically approved  by  experience  now  than  they 
were  then  ?  What  if  we  should  put  ourselves  as 
thoroughly  as  Edinburgh  did  herself  into  the  attitude 
of  a  telescope  focused  on  the  sun  of  religious  truth, 
and  ready,  therefore,  to  cause  an  image  of  the  sun  to 
spring  up  in  the  chambers  of  the  instrument?  We 
are  proud  of  our  lenses:  are  we  willing  to  adjust 
them  ?  Once  adjusted,  even  poor  human  lenses,  by 
fixed  natural  law,  may  draw  down  a  star  or  a  sun  into 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMORTALITY.      275 

the  soul ;  and,  although  the  light  is  from  above,  the  ad- 
justment is  our  own.  Are  we  willing  to  bring  the 
axis  of  adjusted,  spiritual,  telescopic  thought  in  Bos- 
ton into  complete  coincidence  with  the  line  of  the 
keenest  rays  of  conscience,  and  of  self-surrender  to 
God,  and  see  what  the  effect  will  be  in  the  star  ting- 
up  within  us  of  a  light  otherwise  unattainable,  and 
hot  enough  to  burn  up  our  temptations,  —  hot  enough 
to  purge  whatever  of  politics,  or  commerce,  or  social 
life,  is  held  in  the  focus  of  the  rays,  —  hot  enough  to 
sear  the  wings  of  the  dolorous  and  accursed  scepti- 
cisms which  flutter  not  through  the  Boston  noon,  but 
through  the  Boston  dusk,  and  endeavor  yet  to  build 
homes  for  themselves  in  last  year's  birds'  nests,  like 
Paine's  forgotten  books,  and  Parkerism,  and  small  phi- 
losophy, and  free  religion  and  materialism  ?  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Edinburgh,  when  Mr.  Moody  came  to  that  city, 
avoided  a  division  of  her  Christian  forces.  Half  a 
score  of  churches  could  not  hold  the  audiences ;  but 
there  was  no  lack  of  trained  minds  and  hearts  ready 
to  converse  with  the  religiously  irresolute  face  to 
face.  To  bring  those  who  have  not  surrendered  to 
God  face  to  face  with  those  who  have,  and  to  let 
the  two  sets  of  minds  act  and  re-act  upon  each  other 
in  personal  hushed  conversation,  religious  study,  and 
prayer,  is  one  of  the  highest  blessings  to  both,  and 
perhaps  the  most  effective  human  instrumentality 
known  to  man  for  the  diffusion  of  personal  religion. 
I  have  seen  men  and  women  go  into  such  conversa- 
tion shiveringly  as  babes  into  a  bath,  and  come  out 


276  BIOLOGY. 

with  foreheads  white,  and  eyes  like  stars.  Face-to- 
face  conversation  between  the  converted  and  the 
unconverted  is  everywhere  the  chief  measure  to 
be  taken  for  the  religious  culture  of  both.  The 
secret  of  Mr.  Moody's  great  usefulness  is  in  a  com- 
bination of  three  things, — his  total  and  immeasurably 
glad  self-surrender  to  God  ;  his  fervid  oratory,  alive 
in  every  part  with  biblical  truth,  practical  sagacity, 
and  fathomlessly  genuine  consent  to  conscience ;  and 
his  most  uncommon  good  sense  in  organizing  religious 
effort  in  those  forms  which  bring  the  converted  and 
the  unconverted  face  to  face  in  conversation,  biblical 
study,  and  prayer. 

A  power  not  of  man  springs  up  when  the  reli- 
giously resolute  and  the  religiously  irresolute  converse 
and  kneel  together  in  the  Holy  of  holies  of  human 
experience,  a  divine  aroma  breathed  upon  the  two 
from  the  open  Scriptures  between  their  eager  faces. 
These  inquiry-meetings,  this  organization  of 'lay  reli- 
gious effort,  this  putting  the  "unrepentant  face  to  face 
with  the  converted,  this  kneeling  together  of  those 
who  are  right  with  God  and  those  who  wish  to  be, 
is  the  secret,  I  think,  of  the  chief  religious  power  in 
the  long  course  of  the  evangelists'  work. 

Edinburgh  was  willing,  with  all  her  haughtiness, 
to  enter  into  that  style  of  religious  effort.  Professor 
Blaikie  says  that  the  sacred  songs  which  filled  the 
meetings  are  at  this  day  better  known  in  Scotland 
than  Burns's  poems.  In  a  call  issued  to  all  Scotland 
fi'Dm  Edinburgh,  nearly  all  the  professors  of  the 
University  of  Edinburgh  are  represented.  There 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMORTALITY.      277 

were  in  the  list  of  signatures  the  names  of  Professors 
Calderwood,  Balfour,  Blaikie,  Charteris,  MacGregor, 
and  Crawford,  side  by  side  with  those  of  Hanna  and 
Duff,  Scott  Moncrief,  and  Horatius  Bonar.  There  is 
hardly  a  circle  of  culture  in  Edinburgh  that  was  not 
proud  to  be  represented  in  the  lists  of  persons  en- 
gaged in  the  endeavor  to  carry  the  truth  to  all  por- 
tions of  society.  Will  Boston  do  any  thing  like  this  ? 
Will  Harvard  University  do  what  Edinburgh  Univer- 
sity was  proud  to  do  to  carry  men  on  a  vigorous 
current  of  calm  thought  into  self  surrender  to  God  ? 
I  wish  to  speak  with  due  reverence  of  this  city ;  but  I 
am  not  of  the  opinion  that  Boston  is  entitled  to  more 
intellectual  renown  than  Edinburgh ;  and  yet,  in 
Edinburgh,  the  students  came  out  by  thousands  to 
hear  religious  truth,  and  to  have  a  personal  applica- 
tion made  of  it  to  themselves,  not  altogether  by  the 
evangelist,  but  by  the  spirit  of  the  time.  You 
remember  that  on  one  occasion  the  students  of  Edin- 
burgh came  together  in  -the  Free  Assembly  Hall,  and 
so  filled  it,  that  Mr.  Moody  was  obliged  to  speak  to 
an  immense  gathering  in  the  quadrangle,  while  Mr. 
Whyte,  successor  to  Dr.  Candlish,  and  Professor  Char- 
teris, conducted  the  services  within.  Around  the 
platform  were  professors  from  nearly  all  the  depart- 
ments of  the  university,  and  from  the  Free  Church 
and  College,  and  nearly  two  thousand  students. 
This  was  a  more  significant  scene  than  that  when 
Gladstone  sat  on  the  platform  in  London.  (Dr. 
JOHN  HALL  and  G.  H.  STUART,  the  American  Evan 
gelists,  p.  51.) 


278  BIOLOGY. 

Edinburgh  is  looking  upon  Boston;  London 
watches  this  city ;  Glasgow,  Liverpool,  Philadelphia, 
New  York,  Chicago,  ask  what  Boston  will  do  to  bring 
herself  into  an  attitude  in  which  God  can  walk  up 
and  down  our  streets  as  he  has  walked  up  and  down 
the  streets  of  other  cities.  Who  will  prepare  the 
way  for  the  triumphal  procession,  not  of  any  sect,  but 
of  all  Christian  truth  ?  In  Chicago,  the  other  day,  a 
young  man  who  had  stolen  some  thousands  of  dollars 
confessed  his  sin  to  the  person  with  whom  he  con- 
versed in  an  inquirer's  room,  and  of  his  own  accord 
went  to  the  penitentiary.  Over  and  over  again,  it 
has  happened  in  these  meetings  that  men  guilty  of 
unreportable  deeds  have  confessed  them,  and  have 
begun  new  lives  with  that  emphasis  of  sincerity 
which  is  -given  by  voluntarily  taking  witnesses  to 
utterly  unspeakable  guilt.  Is  this  excitement  ?  It 
is  Almighty  God  in  conscience.  Professor  Dorner  I 
heard  say  once  in  Berlin  University,  "  The  truth  is, 
gentlemen,  not  so  much  that  man  has  conscience 
as  that  conscience  has  man."  Your  Emerson  says 
men  cannot  love  Goethe,  because  he  was  incapable 
of  surrender  to  the  moral  sentiment.  Is  Boston 
ready  to  give  herself  up  to  that  sentiment  in  such  a 
manner,  that  she  shall  not  only  know  that  she  has 
conscience,  but  allow  conscience,  and  God  who  is 
behind  it,  to  have  her  ? 

THE  LECTURE. 

As  light  fills,  and  yet 'transcends,  the  rainbow,  so 
God  fills,  and  yet  transcends,  all  natural  law.  Ac- 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMORTALITY.      279 

cording  to  scientific  Theism,  we  are  equally  sure  of 
the  Divine  Immanency  in  all  Nature,  and  of  the 
Divine  Transcendency  beyond  it.  Pantheism,  how- 
ever, with  immeasurably  narrow  horizons,  asserts 
that  natural  law  and  God  are  one ;  and  thus,  at  its 
best,  it  teaches  but  one-half  the  truth ;  namely,  the 
Divine  Immanency,  and  not  the  Divine  Transcend- 
ency. Christian  Theism,  in  the  name  of  the  scien- 
tific method,  teaches  both.  While  you  are  ready  to 
admit  that  every  pulsation  of  the  colors  seven  in  the 
rainbow  is  light,  you  yet  remember  well  that  all  the 
pulsations  taken  together  do  not  constitute  the  whole 
of  light.  Solar  radiance  billows  away  to  all  points 
of  the  compass.  Your  bow  is  bent  above  only  one- 
quarter  of  the  horizon.  So  scientific  Theism  sup- 
poses that  the  whole  universe,  or  finite  existence  in 
its  widest  range,  is  filled  by  the  infinite  Omnipresent 
Will,  as  the  bow  is  filled  with  light ;  and  this  in 
such  a  sense,  that  we  may  say  that  natural  law  is 
God,  who  was,  who  is,  and  who  is  to  come.  In  the 
incontrovertible  scientific  certainty  of  the  Divine 
Immanency,  we  may  feel  ourselves  transfigured  as 
truly  as  any  poetic  pantheist  ever  felt  himself  to  be 
when  lifted  to  his  highest  possible  mount  of  vision. 
But,  beyond  all  that,  Christian  Theism  affirms  that 
God,  knowable  but  unfathomable,  incomprehensible 
but  not  inapprehensible,  billows  away  beyond  all 
that  we  call  infinities  and  eternities,  as  light  beyond 
the  rainbow.  While  he  is  in  all  finite  mind  and 
matte  J,  as  light  is  in  the  colors  seven,  ho  is  as  differ- 
ent from  finite  mind  and  matter  as  is  the  noon  from 


280  BIOLOGY. 

a  narrow  band  of  color  on  the  azure.  Asserting  the 
Divine  Transcenlency  side  by  side  with  the  Divine 
Immanency,  religious  science  escapes,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  self-contradictions  and  narrowness  of  pan- 
theism, and  attains,  on  the  other,  by  the  cold  pre- 
cision of  exact  research,  a  plane  of  thought  as  much 
higher  than  that  of  materialism  as  the  seventh 
heaven  is  loftier  than  the  platform  of  the  insect  or 
the  worm.  [Applause.] 

It  would  be  very  Emersonian  to  differ  from  Emerson. 
[Laughter.]  His  mission,  according  to  his  own  state- 
ment, is  to  unsettle  all  things.  It  is  common  to  hear 
the  acutest  readers  assert  that  his  writings  have  no 
mental  unity.  The  poet  Lowell  thinks  that  some- 
times Emerson's  paragraphs  are  arranged  by  being 
shuffled  in  manuscript;  and  the  best  British  criti- 
cism (Encyc.  Brit.,  1875,  art.  "  On  American  Litera- 
ture ")  says,  "They  are  tossed  out  at  random  like 
the  contents  of  a  conjuror's  hat."  But  is  there  no 
point  of  view  from  which  the  Emersonian  sky, 

u  With  cycles  and  with  epicycles 
Scribbled  o'er," 

may  be  seen  to  have  within  it  a  comprehensible 
law?  Before  Hegel,  Emerson's  master,  became  ob- 
solete or  obsolescent  in  Germany,  no  doubt  Emer- 
son was  a  pantheist ;  but  I  cannot  explain  by  any 
form  of  pantheism  the  later  motions  of  some  stars 
in  his  pare,  soft  azure.  You  may  prove  that  he  is 
more  poet  than  philosopher,  more  seer  than  poet, 
more  mysti  3  than  seer  ;  and  yet  the  surety  in  the 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMORTALITY.      281 

last  analysis  'is,  that  he  is  more  Emerson  than 
either.  [Laughter.]  Individualism  held  firmly,  panthe- 
ism held  waveringly,  are  to  me  the  explanation  of  the 
bewildering  and  yet  gorgeous  motions  of  the  constel- 
lations in  his  sky.  Mr.  Frothingham  acutely  says 
that  Mr.  Emerson's  place  is  among  poetic,  not  among 
philosophic  minds  {Transcendentalism  in  New  Eng- 
land, 1876,  p.  236).  It  is  not  Emersonian  to  wince 
under  philosophical  self-contradiction  ;  but  it  is  Em- 
ersonian to  writhe  under  the  remotest  attempt  to 
cast  on  individualism  so  much  as  the  fetter  of  a 
shadow. 

Loyalty  to  the  Over-Soul  is  Emerson's  supreme 
mood.  Whether  it  lead  to  philosophic  consistency 
or  not,  is  to  his  scheme  of  thought  an  empty  question. 
Whatever  shooting-star  streams  at  this  instant  across 
the  inner  sky  of  personal  inspiration  is  to  be  observed, 
and  its  course  mapped  down,  even  if  it  move  in  a 
direction  opposite  to  that  of  the  last  flaming  track  of 
light  noted  there.  What  if  the  map  at  last  show  a 
thousand  tracks  crossing  each  other  ?  Are  they  not 
all  divine  paths?  Are  they  not  to  be  all  included 
and  explained  in  a  sufficiently  wise  philosophy? 
The  point  of  departure  of  all  the  shooting-stars  in 
Emerson's  sky  is  the  constellation  Leo.  All  his 
metaphysics  he  is  ready  to  abandon  at  any  moment, 
if  the  loftier  movements  of  the  soul  as  it  exists  in 
himself  come  into  conflict  with  his  philosophy.  He 
utters  whatever  the  Over-Soul  seems  to  him  to  say, 
whether  in  harmony  with  previous  deliverances  or 
not.  He  is  a  pantheist,  but  not  a  consistent  panthe- 


282  BIOLOGY. 

ist:  he  is  an  idealist,  but  not  a  consistent  idealist: 
he  is  a  religious  mystic,  but  not  a  consistent  mystic  : 
he  is  an  individualist,  mapping  his  own  highest  inner 
self,  or,  as  he  would  say  in  pantheistic  phrase,  mapping 
Grod.  The  Over-Soul  comes  to  consciousness  only  in 
man.  In  the  transfigured  work  of  tracing  on  the 
page  of  literature  all  gleams  of  light  in  the  Over-Soul 
in  Emerson,  he  is  consistent  with  himself,  and  in  this 
only.  A  maker  of  maps  of  the  paths  of  shooting- 
stars  is  Emerson ;  and  he  is  more  devout  than  any 
astronomer  intoxicated  with  the  azure.  Sit  in  the 
constellation  Leo,  if  you  would  understand  the 
Emersonian  sky. 

A  brilliant  and  learned  volume  by  a  revered 
preacher  of  this  city  (REV.  DR.  MANNING,  Half 
Truths  and  the  Truth,  1872)  contains  the  most 
luminous  analytical  proof  that  a  pantheistic  trend 
sets  through  Emerson's  writings  as  the  gulf-current 
through  the  Atlantic.  But  Emerson  often  proclaims 
his  readiness  to  abandon  pantheism  itself,  if  the 
Over-Soul  seems  to  command  him  to  do  so.  In  the 
whole  range  of  his  often  self-destructive  apothegms, 
I  find  no  single  sentence  so  descriptive  of  his  position 
as  a  fixed  individualist  and  a  wavering  pantheist  as 
this :  — 

"  In  your  metaphysics  you  have  denied  personali- 
ty to  the  Deity  ;  yet,  when  the  devout  motions  of  the 
soul  come,  yield  to  them  heart  and  life,  though  they 
should  clothe  God  with  shape  and  color.  Leave  your 
theory,  as  Joseph  his  coat,  in  the  hand  of  the  har- 
lot, and  flee  "  (EMERSON,  Essays,  vol.  i.  p.  -rO). 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMORTALITY.       283 

Whoever  would  come  to  the  point  of  view  from 
which  all  Emerson's  self-contradictions  are  recon- 
ciled must  take  his  position  upon  the  summit  of 
individualism,  and  transfigure  that  height  by  the 
thought  that  there  billows  around  it  what  we  call  God 
in  conscience,  and  what  Emerson  calls  the  Ov^r-Soul. 
In  the  loftiest  zones  of  human  experience  there 
are  influences  from  a  Somewhat  and  Some-one  that 
is  in  us,  but  not  of  us ;  and  Emerson  is  so  far  pan- 
theistic as  to  hold  that  this  highest  in  man  is  not 
only  a  manifestation  of  God,  but  God,  and  the  only 
God.  Therefore  he  is  always  in  the  mount.  His 
supreme  tenet  is  the  primacy  of  mind  in  the  uni- 
verse, and  I  had  almost  said  the  identity  of  the 
human  mind  with  the  Divine  Mind.  As  the  waves 
are  many,  and  yet  one  with  the  sea,  so  to  pantheism, 
finite  minds  and  the  events  of  the  universe  are  many, 
and  yet  one  with  God.  As  the  green  billows  that 
dash  at  this  moment  on  Boston  Harbor  bar,  and  cap 
themselves  with  foam,  are  one  with  the  Atlantic,  so 
you  and  I,  and  Shakspeare,  and  Charlemagne,  and 
Caesar,  and  the  Seven  Stars,  and  Orion,  are  but  so 
many  waves  in  the  Divine  All.  The  ages,  like  the 
soft-hissing  spray,  may  take  this  shape  or  that ;  but 
they  all  come  from  one  sea.  Every  wave  is  an  inlet 
to  the  sea,  and  to  all  of  the  sea.  "  There  is,"  says 
Emerson,  "  one  Mind  common  to  all  individual  men. 
Every  man  is  an  inlet  to  the  same,  and  to  all  of  the 
same"  (Essay  on  History').  "  The  simplest  person, 
ivho  in  his  integrity  worships  G-od,  becomes  Grod" 
Eight  generations  of  clerical  descent  are  behind 


284  BIOLOGY. 

Emerson's  unwavering  reverence  for  the  still  small 
voice :  one  generation  of  now  almost  outgrown  Ger- 
man thinkers  is  behind  his  wavering  reverence  for 
pantheism.  Would  he  only  assert,  side  by  side  with 
.the  Divine  Immanence,  the  Divine  Transcendency,  we 
might  call  him  a  Christian  mystic,  where  now  we 
can  only  call  him  a  teacher  of  transfigured  panthe- 
istic individualism.  [Applause.] 

Pantheism  denies  the  personal  immortality  of  the 
soul.  To  pantheism,  death  is  the  sinking  of  a  wave 
back  into  the  sea.  We  shall  find,  however,  that 
Emerson,  true  to  his  central  tenet  of  hallowed  indi- 
vidualism, has  again  and  again  asserted  the  personal 
immortality  of  the  soul,  and  never  denied  it  in  re- 
ality, though  he  has  often  done  so  in  appearance. 

When,  in  1832,  Mr.  Emerson  bade  adieu  to  his 
parish  in  this  city,  he  used,  as  on  every  occasion  he 
is  accustomed  to  use,  memorable  words.  "I  com- 
mend you,"  the  last  sentences  of  his  letter  to  that 
parish  read,  "to  the  Divine  Providence.  May  he 
multiply  to  your  families  and  to  your  persons  every 
genuine  blessing;  and  whatever  discipline  may  be 
appointed  to  you  in  this  world,  may  the  blessed  hope 
of  the  resurrection,  which  he  has  planted  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  human  soul,  and  confirmed  and  mani- 
fested by  Jesus  Christ,  be  made  good  to  you  beyond 
the  grave !  In  this  faith  and  hope  I  bid  you  fare- 
well" (EMEKSON,  R.  W.,  Letter  dated  Boston,  Dec. 
22,  1832,  quoted  in  Frothingham?  s  Transcendental- 
ism in  New  England,  1876,  p.  235).  These  are 
wholly  unambiguous  words. 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMORTALITY.       285 

You  say  that  Emerson  never  has  asserted,  since 
18&2,  the  personal  immortality  of  the  soul;  but 
what  do  you  make  of  certain  almost  sacredly  pri- 
vate statements  of  his  to  Fredrika  Bremer  ?  That 
authoress,  whose  works  Germany  gathers  up  in 
thirty-four  volumes,  came  out  of  the  snows  of 
Northern  Europe,  and  one  day  found  Mr.  Emerson 
walking  down  the  avenue  of  pines  in  front  of  his 
house,  through  the  falling  snow,  to  greet  her.  Day 
after  day  they  conversed  on  the  highest  themes. 
Months  passed  while  Fredrika  Bremer  was  the  guest 
of  Boston ;  and,  toward  the  end  of  the  lofty  inter- 
changes of  thought  between  these  two  elect  souls, 
there  occurred  what  Fredrika  Bremer  calls  a  most 
serious  season.  One  afternoon  in  Boston,  with  all 
the  depth  of  her  passionate  and  poetic  temperament, 
she  endeavored  to  convince  Emerson  that  God  is  not 
only  in  all  natural  law,  but  that  he  transcends  it  all ; 
that  he  demands  of  us  perfection ;  and  that,  there- 
fore, as  Kant  used  to  say,  we  must  expect  personal 
immortality  or  opportunity  to  fulfil  the  demand ; 
that  religion  is  the  marriage  of  the  soul  with  God ; 
and  that  the  idea  that  God  is  objective  to  us,  and 
that  our  souls  may  come  into  harmony  with  his,  a 
Person  meeting  a  person,  is  vastly  superior,  as  an 
inspiration,  to  any  pantheistic  theory  that  all  there 
is  of  God  is  what  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  insignifi- 
cant scope  of  our  faculties.  She  endeavored,  in  the 
name  of  lofty  thought,  to  show  the  narrowness  of 
pantheism  at  its  best.  The  interview  was  serious  in 
the  last  degree  ;  and  Fredrika  Bremer  savs  that  Em- 


286  BIOLOGY. 

erson  closed  it  with  these  words,  "  I  do  not  wish 
that  people  should  pretend  to  know  or  believe  more 
than  they  really  do  know  and  believe.  The  resur- 
rection, the  continuance  of  our  being,  is  granted : 
we  carry  the  pledge  of  this  in  our  own  breast.  I 
maintain  merely  that  we  cannot  say  in  what  form 
or  in  what  marner  our  existence  will  be  continued  " 
(EMERSON,  "  Conversation  with  Fredrika  Bremer," 
Homes  of  the  New  World^  vol.  i.  p.  228). 

Transcendentalism  in  New  England  was  marked 
by  a  bold  assertion  of  the  personal  continuance  of 
the  soul  after  death.  "  The  Dial "  always  assumed 
the  fact  of  immortality.  "  The  transcendentalist  was 
an  enthusiast  on  this  article,"  Mr.  Frothingham  says ; 
and  Mr.  Emerson's  writings,  he  adds,  were  "  redo- 
lent of  the  faith."  Theodore  Parker  thought  per- 
sonal immortality  is  known  to  us  by  intuition,  or  as 
a  self-evident  truth,  as  surely  as  we  know  that  a 
whole  is  greater  than  a  part.  It  must  be  admitted 
that  New-England  transcendentalism  caused  in  many 
parts  of  our  nation  a  revival  of  interest  and  of  faith 
in  personal  immortality.  (See  FEOTHINGHAM,  Tran- 
scendentalism, pp.  195—198.)  Mr.  Emerson  was  the 
leader  of  New-England  transcendentalism. 

But  you  say,  that  since  1850,  Emerson  has  changed 
his  opinion ;  and  yet,  if  you  open  the  last  essay  he 
has  given  to  the  world,  that  on  "  Immortality,"  you 
will  read,  "  Every  thing  is  prospective,  and  man  is 
to  live  hereafter.  That  the  world  is  for  his  educa- 
tion is  the  only  sane  solution  of  the  enigma.  .  .  . 
The  implanting  of  a  desire  indicates  that  the  gratifi- 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMORTALITY.       287 

cation  of  that  desire  is  in  the  constitution  of  the 
creature  that  feels  it.  ...  The  Creator  keeps  his 
word  with  us.  ...  All  I  have  seen  teaches  me  to 
trust  the  Creator  for  all  I  have  not  seen.  Will  you, 
with  vast  cost  and  pains,  educate  your  children  to 
produce  a  masterpiece,  and  then  shoot  them  down  ?  " 
What  do  these  phrases  amount  to,  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  the  two  earlier  passages  which  I  have 
cited,  and  which  assuredly  assert  personal  immor- 
tality ?  "  All  sound  minds  rest  on  a  certain  prelim- 
inary conviction,  namely,  that,  if  it  be  best  that  con- 
scious personal  life  shall  continue,  it  will  continue  ; 
if  not  best,  then  it  will  not ;  and  we,  if  we  saw  the 
whole,  should,  of  course,  see  that  it  was  better  so. 
...  I  admit  that  you  shall  find  a  good  deal  of  scep- 
ticism in  the  street  and  hotels  and  places  of  coarse 
amusement ;  but  that  is  only  to  say  that  the  prac- 
tical faculties  are  faster  developed  than  the  spiritual. 
Where  there  is  depravity,  there  is  a  slaughter-house 
style  of  thinking.  One  argument  of  future  life  is 
the  recoil  of  the  mind  in  such  company,  —  our  pain 
at  every  sceptical  statement." 

The  "  conscious  personal "  continuance  of  the  soul, 
Emerson  no  more  than  Goethe  denies.  In  this  very 
essay,  however,  we  milst  expect  to  find  apparent  self- 
contradiction  ;  and  accordingly  we  can  read  here  these 
sentences,  written  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  waver- 
ing pantheism,  "  Jesus  never  preaches  the  personal 
immortality.  ...  I  confess  that  every  thing  con- 
nected with  our  personality  fails.  The  moral  and 
intellectual  reality  to  which  we  aspire  is  immortal, 
and  we  only  through  that." 


288  BIOLOGY. 

Allow  me,  on  this  occasion,  to  contrast  arguments 
with  ipse  dixits,  and  to  use  only  the  considerations 
which  are  implied  in  Emerson's  teachings  on  immor- 
tality. You  will  be  your  own  judges  whether  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  a  personal  existence  after 
death  must  follow  from  his  premises.  I  shall,  of 
course,  unbraid  the  reasoning,  and  show  its  strands ; 
but  its  braided  form  is  Emerson's  axiom,  "  The  Cre- 
ator keeps  his  word  with  us."  The  argument  is  old ; 
and  for  that  reason,  probably,  Emerson  values  it.  It 
has  borne  the  tooth  of  time,  and  the  bufferings  of 
acutest  controversy  age  after  age.  In  our  century 
it  stands  firmer  than  ever,  because  we  know  now 
through  the  microscope,  better  than  before,  that 
there  is  that  behind  living  tissues  which  blind 
mechanical  laws  cannot  explain. 

1.  An  organic  or  constitutional  instinct  is  an  im- 
pulse or  propensity  existing  prior  to  experience,  and 
independent  of  instruction. 

This  definition  is  a  very  fundamental  one,  and  is 
substantially  Paley's  (Nat.  TheoL,  chap.  18). 

2.  The  expectation  of  existence  after  death  is  an 
organic  or  constitutional  instinct. 

3.  The  existence   of  this  instinct  in   man   is   as 
demonstrable  as  the  existence  of  the  constitutional 
instincts  of  admiration  for  the  beautiful,  or  of  curi- 
osity as  to  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect. 

What  automatic  action  is,  you  know ;  and  an  in- 
stinct is  based  upon  the  automatic  action  of  the 
nervous  mechanism.  Who  doubts  that  certain  pos- 
tures in  anger,  certain  attitudes  in  fear,  certain 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMORTALITY.       289 

others  in  reverence,  certain  others  in  surprise,  are 
instinctive  ?  These  postures  are  taken  up  by  us, 
without  reflection  on  our  part :  they  are  organic  in 
origin.  It  is  instinct  for  us  to  rest  when  we  are 
fatigued,  and  to  take  the  recumbent  position;  and 
we  do  not  reason  about  this.  The  babe  does  it. 
Instinctive  actions  appear  early  in  the  progress  of 
life,  and  are  substantially  the  same  in  all  men  and  in 
all  times.  An  educated  impulse  does  not  appear 
early,  and  is  not  the  same  among  all  men  in  all 
times.  Of  course,  it  would  avail  nothing  if  I  were 
to  prove  that  the  belief  in  immortality  has  come  to 
us  from  education.  If  that  belief  result  from  an 
organic  instinct,  however,  if  it  be  constitutional,  then 
it  means  much,  and  more  than  much. 

4.  The   dulness  of  these  instincts  in  a  few  low 
races,  or  in  poorly-developed  individuals,  does  not 
disprove   the   proposition,    that   admiration   for   the 
beautiful,  and  curiosity  as  to  the  relations  of  cause 
and  effect,  are  constitutional  in  man. 

5.  So  the  occasional  feebleness  of  the  expectation 
of  existence  after  death  does  not  show  that  it  is  not 
an  organic  or  constitutional  instinct. 

6.  This  instinct  appears  in  the  natural  operations 
of  conscience,  which  anticipates  personal  punishment 
or  reward  in  an  existence  beyond  death. 

You  desire  incisive  proof  that  we  have  a  constitu- 
tional anticipation  of  something  beyond  the  veil ;  but 
can  you  look  into  Shakspeare's  mirror  of  the  inner 
man,  and  not  see  case  after  case  of  the  action  of  that 
constitutional  expectation?  Shakspeare's  delinea- 


290  BIOLOGY. 

tions  are  philosophically  as  unpartisan  and  as  exact 
as  those  of  a  mirror.  Is  it  not  the  immemorial  pro- 
verb of  all  great  poetry,  as  well  as  of  all  profound 
philosophy,  that  there  is  something  that  makes  cow- 
ards of  us  all  as  we  draw  near  to  death,  and  that  this 
something  is  not  physical  pain,  but  a  Somewhat 
behind  the  veil  ?  Death  would  have  little  terror  if 
its  pains  were  physical  and  intellectual  only.  There 
is  an  instinctive  action  of  the  moral  sense  by  which 
we  anticipate  that  there  are  events  to  come  after 
death,  and  that  these  will  concern  us  most  closely. 

Bishop  Butler,  in  his  famous  "  Sermons  on  Con- 
science," has  no  more  incisive  passage  than  that  in 
which  he  declares  that  "  conscience,  unless  forcibly 
stopped,  magisterially  exerts  itself,  and  always  goes 
on  to  anticipate  a  higher  and  more  effectual  sen- 
tence which  shall  hereafter  second  and  confirm  its 
own."  This  prophetic  action  of  conscience  I  call 
the  chief  proof  that  man  has  an  instinctive  expecta- 
tion of  existence  after  death.  We  are  so  made,  that 
we  touch  somewhat  behind  the  veil.  As  an  insect 
throws  out  its  antennae,  and  by  their  sensitive  fibres 
touches  what  is  near  it,  so  the  human  soul  throws 
out  the  vast  arms  of  conscience  to  touch  eternity, 
and  Somewhat,  not  ourselves,  in  the  spaces  beyond 
this  life.  All  there  is  in  literature,  all  there  is  in 
heathen  sacrifice,  continued  age  after  age,  to  propi- 
tiate the  powers  beyond  death,  all  there  is  in  the 
persistency  of  human  endeavor,  grotesque  and  cruel 
at  times,  to  secure  the  peace  of  the  soul  behind  the 
veiL;  are  proclamations  of  this  prophetic  action  of 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMOETALITY.      291 

conscience ;  yet  conscience  itself  is  only  one  thread 
in  the  web  of  the  pervasive  organic  instinct  which 
anticipates  existence  after  death.  [Applause.] 

7.  This  instinct  appears  in  a  sense  of  obligation  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  an  infinitely  perfect  moral 
law. 

We  know  that  the  moral  law  is  perfect,  and  there- 
fore that  the  moral  Lawgiver  is  perfect. 

But  the  moral  law  demands  our  perfection. 
"  Therefore,"  said  Immanuel  Kant,  "  the  moral  law 
contains  in  it  a  postulate  of  immortality."  Its  re- 
quirement is  a  part  of  our  constitution,  and  cannot 
be  met  in  this  stage  of  existence.  It  is  not  met  here, 
and  therefore  the  moral  law  requires  us  to  beli eve  in  an 
existence  after  death.  That  is  Kant's  very  celebrated 
proof;  but  I  am  pointing  to  it  only  as  one  thread  in 
this  organic  web  which  we  call  instinctive  anticipa- 
tion of  existence  after  death.  Put  your  Shakspeare 
on  the  fear  of  what  is  behind  the  veil,  side  by  side 
with  your  Kant  on  this  anticipation  of  the  time  when 
we  can  approximate  to  perfection,  and  you  will  find 
these  broad-shouldered  men,  in  the  name  of  both 
poetry  and  philosophy,  affirming,  as  the  postulate  of 
organic  instinct  in  man,  that  existence  after  death  is 
a  reality.  [Applause.] 

8.  It  appears  in  the  universality  of  the  belief  in 
existence  after   death.     All  widely-extended  beliefs 
result  much  more  from  organic  instinct  than  from 
tradition. 

9.  It  appears  in  the  human  delight  in  permanence. 

10.  It  appears  in  the  unoccupied  capacities  of  man 
in  his  present  state  of  being. 


292  BIOLOGY. 

11.  It  appears  in  the  convictions  natural   to  the 
highest  moods  of  the  soul. 

"  There  shine  through  all  our  earthly  dresse 
Bright  shootes  of  everlastingnesse. ' ' 

12.  It  appears  in  the  longing  for  personal  immor- 
tality characteristic  of  all  high  states   of  complete 
culture. 

13.  It  appears  conspicuously  in  Paganism  itself,  in 
the  persistence  of  all  the  ages  of  the  world  in  the 
efforts  to  propitiate  Supreme  Powers,  and  to  secure 
the  peace  of  the  soul  beyond  the  grave. 

How  is  the  force  of  any  impulse  to  be  measured, 
unless  by  the  work  it  will  do  ?  What  work  has  not 
this  desire  of  man,  to  be  sure  that  all  will  be  well 
with  him  beyond  the  veil,  not  done  ?  What  force  has 
maintained  the  bloody  sacrifices  of  the  heathen  world 
through  all  the  dolorous  ages  of  the  career  of  Pagan- 
ism on  the  planet  ?  What  force  has  given  intensity 
to  the  inquiries  of  philosophy  as  to  immortality? 
What  has  been  the  inspiration  of  the  loftiest  litera- 
ture in  every  nation  and  in  all  time,  whenever  it  has 
spoken  of  avenging  deities  that  will  see  that  all  is 
made  right  at  last  ?  How  are  we  to  explain  the  per- 
sistency of  every  age  in  the  attempt  to  propitiate  the 
powers  beyond  the  veil,  and  to  secure  the  peace 
of  the  soul  after  death,  if  not  by  this  impulse  arising 
organically,  and  existing  as  a  part  of  the  human 
constitution  ?  [Applause.] 

14.  Nature  makes  no  half-hinges.     God  does  not 
create  a  desire  to  mock  it.     The  universe  is  not  un- 


EMERSON'S  VIEWS  ON  IMMORTALITY.      293 

skilfully  made.  There  are  no  dissonances  in  the 
divine  works.  Our  constitutional  instincts  raise  no 
false  expectations.  Conscience  tells  no  Munchausen 
tales.  The  structure  of  the  human  constitution  is 
not  an  organized  lie.  "  The  Creator  keeps  his  word 
with  us."  [Applause.] 

15.  But,  if  there  is  no  existence  after  death,  con- 
science does  tell  Munchausen  tales ;  man  is  bunglingly 
made;  his  constitution  raises  false  expectations;  his 
structure  is  an  organized  lie. 

Our  age  has  many  in  it  who  wander  as  lost  babes 
in  the  woods,  not  asking  whether  there  is  any  way 
out  of  uncertainties  on  the  highest  of  all  themes,  and 
in  suppressed  sadness  beyond  that  of  tears.  Small 
philosophers  are  great  characters  in  democratic  cen- 
turies, when  every  man  thinks  for  himself ;  but  lost 
babes  are  greater.  There  is  a  feeling  that  we  can 
know  nothing  of  what  we  most  desire  to  know.  I 
hold,  first  of  all,  to  the  truth  that  man  may  know, 
not  every  thing,  but  enough  for  practical  purposes. 
If  I  have  a  Father  in  heaven,  if  I  am  created  by  an 
intelligent  and  benevolent  Being,  then  it  is  worth 
while  to  ask  the  way  out  of  these  woods.  I  will  not 
be  a  questionless  lost  babe ;  for  I  believe  there  is  a 
way,  and  that,  although  we  may  not  know  the  map 
of  all  the  forest,  we  can  find  the  path  home.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

There  are  four  stages  of  culture;  and  they  are 
all  represented  in  Boston  to-day,  and  in  every  highly 
civilized  quarter  of  the  globe.  There  is  the  first 
stage,  in  which  we  usually  think  we  know  every  thing. 


294  BIOLOGY. 

Then  comes  the  second  stage,  in  which,  as  our  knowl- 
edge grows,  we  are  confronted  with  so  many  ques- 
tions which  we  can  ask  and  cannot  answer,  that  we 
say  in  our  sophomorical,  despairing  mood,  that  we  can 
know  nothing.  A  little  above  that  we  say  we  can 
know  something,  but  only  what  is  just  before  our 
senses.  Then,  lastly,  we  come  to  the  stage  in  which 
we  say,  not  that  we  can  know  every  thing,  not  that  we 
can  know  much,  indeed,  but  in  which  we  are  sure 
we  can  know  enough  for  practical  purposes. 

Every  thing,  nothing,  something,  enough!  There 
are  the  infantine,  adolescent,  juvenile,  and  mature 
stages  of  culture.  [Applause.] 

16.  But,  so  far  as  human  observation  extends,  we 
know  inductively  that  there  is  no  exception  to  the 
law  that  every  constitutional  instinct  has  its  correlate 
to  match  it. 

17.  Wherever  we  find  a  wing,  we  find  air  to  match 
it ;  a  fin,  water  to  match  it ;  an  eye,  light  to  match 
it ;   an  ear,  sound  to   match  it ;  perception  of  the 
beautiful,  beauty  to  match  it ;  reasoning  power,  cause 
and  effect  to  match  it ;  and  so  through  all  the  myriads 
of  known  cases. 

18.  From  our  possession  of  a  constitutional  or  or- 
ganic instinct  by  which  we  expect  existence  after 
death,  we  must  therefore  infer  the  fact  of  such  exist- 
ence, as  the  migrating  bird  might  infer  the  existence 
of  a  South  from  its  instinct  of  migration. 

19.  This  inference  proceeds  strictly  upon  the  sci- 
entific principle  of  the  universality  of  law. 

20.  It  everywhere  implies,  not  the  absorption  of 


295 


the  soul  into  the  mass  of  general  being,  but  its  per- 
sonal continuance. 

Your  poet  William  Cullen  Bryant  once  sat  in  the 
sweet  country-side,  and  heard  the  bugle  of  the  wild 
migrating  swan  as  the  bird  passed  over  him  south- 
ward in  the  twilight.  Looking  up  into  the  assenting 
azure,  this  seer  uttered  reposefully  the  deepest  words 
of  his  philosophy  :  — 

Whither,  midst  falling  dew, 

While  glow  the  heavens  with  the  last  steps  of  day, 
Far  through  their  rosy  depths  dost  thou  pursue 

Thy  solitary  way  ? 

There  is  a  Power  whose  care 
Teaches  thy  way  along  that  pathless  coast, 
The  desert  and  illimitable  air, 

Lone  wandering,  but  not  lost. 

He  who,  from  zone  to  zone,- 

Guides  through  the  boundless  sky  thy  certain  flight, 
In  the  long  way  that  I  must  tread  alone 

Will  lead  my  steps  aright. 

BRYANT,  To  a  Waterfowl. 


XIII. 

IMICI  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY. 

THE   FIFTY-EIGIITH   LECTURE    IN    THE    BOSTON   MONDAY 

LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN    TREMONT 

TEMPLE    DEC.   25. 


"  DEB  Leib  der  Menschen  1st  eine  zerbrechliche,  immer  erneuete 
Hiille,  die  endlich  sich  nicht  mehr  erneuen  kann."  —  HEBDEB,  Phi- 
losophy of  History. 

"  THE  poet  in  a  golden  clime  was  born, 

With  golden  stars  above; 
Dowered  with  the  hate  of  hate,  the  scorn  of  scorn, 

The  love  of  love. 
He  saw  through  life  and  death,  through  good  and  ill ; 

He  saw  through  his  own  soul; 
The  marvel  of  the  everlasting  will, 

An  open  scroll, 
Before  him  lav." — TENNYSON, 


XIII. 
ULRICI   ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

THIS  morning,  the  bells  of  Christian  churches  on 
the  continents,  and  of  Christian  vessels  on  the  great 
deep,  are  audible  to  each  other  around  the  whole 
planet.  I  am  not  speaking  rhetorically,  but  geo- 
graphically, when  I  say  that  the  Christian  Church 
at  this  moment  encircles  the  world  in  her  arms.  We 
forget  too  often  what  a  great  continent  Australia  is, 
and  what  a  pervasive  force  her  English  language  and 
laws  may  become  in  the  lonely  southern  hemisphere. 
But  Japan  has  forced  herself  upon  the  notice  of  the 
world  of  late,  as  the  undeveloped  England  of  the 
Pacific.  Her  great  Mikado  congratulated  our  Presi- 
dent, only  the  other  day,  on  the  success  of  our  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition ;  and  there  lay  behind  the  cordial 
words  from  the  far  shore  just  the  sentiment  which  a 
Japanese  high  official  expressed  lately  at  Hartford, 
that  the  Christianization  of  Japan  is  an  event  to  be 
expected  in  the  near  future.  The  revolution  in  that 
crowded  island  of  sensitive,  ingenious  men,  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  cultivated  upper  classes.  It  does  not 

299 


300  BIOLOGY. 

depend  on  count  of  heads  or  clack  of  tongues,  and  is 
not  likely  to  go  backward. 

You  say  Russia  and  England  may  come  into  armed 
collision  in  the  shadow  of  the  Himalayas,  and  that 
the  bear  and  the  lion  may  fill  the  Cashmere  vale  with 
blood.  May  God  avert  this !  But,  even  if  they  do 
so,  it  will  yet  remain  sure,  in  any  event,  that  the  days 
of  Buddhism  are  numbered ;  and  that,  so  far  as  Pa- 
ganism governs  Central  Asia,  it  is  every  year  squeezed 
more  and  more  nearly  to  its  exit  from  life  between 
the  state  necessities  of  Russia  and  England.  Com- 
ing farther  West,  it  is  significant  that  the  Suez 
Canal,  the  key  to  the  great  gate  of  the  way  to  India, 
belongs  now  chiefly  to  Great  Britain ;  and  that,  even 
with  the  Egyptian  road  to  the  East  in  her  possession, 
she  cannot  afford  as  yet  to  take  off  from  Constanti- 
nople an  eye  behind  which,  for  eight  hundred  years, 
has  rested  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  authority  on 
this  planet,  and  which  now  rules  a  fifth  part  of  the 
population  of  the  globe. 

Only  this  morning,  from  under  the  sea,  we  have 
whispered  to  us  by  electric  lips  great  promises  by 
the  "  sick  man "  of  the  Bosphorus.  The  liberty  of 
Ottomans  is  to  be  inviolable.  The  religious  privileges 
of  all  communities,  and  the  free  exercise  of  public 
worship  by  all  creeds,  are  guaranteed.  Liberty  of 
the  press  is  granted.  Primary  education  is  compul- 
sory. All  citizens  are  eligible  to  public  offices, 
irrespective  of  religion.  Confiscation,  statute  labor, 
torture,  and  inquisition  are  prohibited.  Ministerial 
responsibility  is  established.  A  chamber  of  deputies 


ULKICI  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY.  301 

and  a  senate  are  instituted.  These  two  houses,  in 
connection  with  the  ministry,  have  the  initiative  in 
framing  laws.  General  and  municipal  councils  are 
to  be  formed  by  election.  The  prerogatives  of  the 
Sultan  are  to  be  only  those  of  the  constitutional 
sovereigns  of  the  West. 

In  1453  Islam  crossed  the  Bosphorus  with  a 
bound ;  for  the  leprosies  of  its  social  life  had  not  yet 
had  time  to  unstring  its  nerves.  Its  own  poisons 
have  made  it  now  little  more  than  unspeakably 
flaccid  flesh,  without  a  soul.  Its  promises  are  very 
empty.  But  this  time,  as  never  before,  the  demand 
for  reform  is  emphasized  by  the  great  powers  of 
Europe.  This  new  constitution  just  promulgated 
in  Constantinople  contains  no  guaranties  which  the 
rest  of  Europe  will  not  ultimately  be  obliged  to 
secure  from  the  populations  of  European  Turkey. 
But,  if  Islam  must  make  the  changes  Europe 
demands,  she  must  violate  the  Koran.  Let  adequate 
political  reforms  be  perfected  in  Turkey,  and  Islam- 
ism  is  sure  to  unloosen  her  accursed,  leprous  grasp 
from  the  fair  throat  of  the  Bosphorus. 

One  of  our  most  gifted  missionaries  and  statesmen, 
Dr.  Hamlin,  has  said  lately,  "Let  Turkey  stand, 
that  Islam  may  fall."  No  doubt  this  opinion  is  a 
wise  one  from  his  point  of  view ;  an(J.  this  morning 
even  we,  who  are  so  little  familiar  with  the  politics 
of  the  Bosphorus,  can  understand,  that,  if  all  the 
reforms  the  recent  conference  of  the  great  powers 
hag  asked  for  are  carried,  the  Koran  is  a  dead  letter 
in  Turkey.  Dr.  Hamlin  seems  to  say  that  certain 


302  BIOLOGY. 

political  changes  are  going  forward  in  Turkey  under 
the  pressure  of  her  own  state  necessities  and  of  the 
demands  of  the  great  powers;  that  these  changes 
cannot  be  carried  through  without  violating  in  the 
boldest  manner  the  political  and  religious  provisions 
of  the  Koran  ;  and  that,  therefore,  if  Turkey  will 
carry  these  reforms  through,  she  will  undermine  the 
authority  of  her  own  sacred  book. 

It  seems  probable,  however,  that  Providence  is 
to  make  shorter  work  with  what  Carlyle  calls  the 
unspeakable  Turk  than  he  would  in  any  way  make 
with  himself  under  the  pressure  of  the  necessity  for 
political  reform.  Is  it  not  pretty  clear  that  Glad- 
stone's advice  will  ultimately  be  followed ;  and  that 
Turkey  as  a  Mohammedan  empire  will  at  least  have 
no  more  armed  support  from  Christian  powers  ?  If 
she  must  take  care  of  herself,  how  long  can  she,  who, 
in  one  of  the  fairest  regions  of  the  globe,  is  a  treach- 
erous bankrupt  now,  maintain  her  position  in  Europe, 
face  to  face  with  the  increasingly  angry  protest  of 
her  own  population  and  of  Russia  on  the  north,  and 
of  Austria,  Germany,  England,  and  France  toward 
the  setting  sun?  Constantinople  and  Cairo  are  held 
by  Islam  to-day  only  with  faint  grasp.  Without 
these  cities  she  will  be  driven  back  in  her  fearful 
sickness  to  her  deserts.  Only  most  slowly  can .  she 
be  healed  there  of  her  terribly  poisoned  blood.  The 
days  of  the  distinctively  Mohammedan  power  in 
Europe  are  numbered. 

Looking  around  the  globe  to-day,  we  see,  therefore, 
an  unbroken  line  of  Christian  influences  in  the  near 


TJLEICI  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY.  303 

future,  stretching  from  the  Yosemite  to  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  to  Australia,  to  Japan,  to  India,  and  past 
the  Suez  Canal,  and  thence  to  the  Bosphorus,  and 
thence  to  Germany,  now  possessing  political  and 
Protestant  primacy  in  Europe,  and  so  on  to  England, 
and  then  across  that  little  brook  we  call  the  Atlantic, 
only  two  seconds  wide  now  for  electricity.  There 
are  no  foreign  lands. 

In  this  year,  America  may  say  of  her  guests  what 
was  said  of  Portia's  suitors :  — 

"  The  watery  kingdom 

Whose  ambitious  head  threatens  the  face  of  heaven 
Is  no  bar  to  stop  the  foreign  spirits; 
But  they  come  as  o'er  a  brook." 

Merchant  of  Venice. 

Christianity  at  this  hour  reads  her  Scriptures,  and 
lifts  up  her  anthems,  in  two  hundred  languages.  One- 
half  of  the  missionaries  of  the  globe  may  be  reached 
from  Boston  by  telegraph  in  twenty-four  hours.  God 
is  making  commerce  his  missionary. 

It  is  incontrovertible  that  it  was  predicted  ages 
ago,  that  a  chosen  man  called  yonder  out  of  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees  should  become  a  chosen  family,  and  this  a 
chosen  nation,  and  that  in  this  nation  should  appear 
a  chosen  Supreme  Teacher  of  the  race,  and  that  he 
should  found  a  chosen  church,  and  that,  to  his 
chosen  people,  with  zeal  for  good  works,  should  ulti- 
mately be  given  all  nations  and  the  isles  of  the  sea. 
In  precisely  this  order  world-history  has  unrolled 
itself,  and  is  now  unrolling.  No  man  can  deny  this, 
No  man  can  meditate  adequately  on  this  without 


304  BIOLOGY. 

blanched  cheeks.  "What  are  the  signs  of  the  times 
which  I  have  recounted  on  this  festal  morn,  but 
added  waves  in  this  fathomlessly  mysterious  gulf- 
current  ?  We  know  it  began  with  the  ripple  we  call 
Abraham.  It  is  now  almost  as  broad  as  the  Atlantic 
itself.  What  Providence  does,  it  from  the  first  in- 
tends to  do.  We  see  what  it  has  done.  We  know 
what  it  intended.  It  has  caused  this  gulf-current 
to  flow  in  one  direction  two  thousand,  three  thousand, 
four  thousand  years.  Good  tidings,  this  gulf-cur- 
rent, if  we  float  with  it !  —  good  tidings  which  are  to 
be  to  all  peoples  !  A  Power  not  ourselves  makes  for 
righteousness.  It  has  steadily  caused  the  fittest  to 
survive,  and  thus  has  executed  a  plan  of  choosing  a 
peculiar  people.  The  survival  of  the  fittest  will  ulti- 
mately give  the  world  to  the  fit.  Are  we,  in  our 
anxiety  for  the  future,  to  believe  that  this  law  will 
alter  soon  ?  or  to  fear  that  He  whose  will  the  law 
expresses,  and  who  never  slumbers  nor  sleeps,  will 
change  his  plan  to-morrow,  or  the  day  after  ?  [Ap- 
plause.] 

On  this  day  of  jubilee,  let  us  gaze  on  this  gulf- 
current,  and  take  from  it  heart  and  hope,  harmonious 
with  the  heart  of  Almighty  God,  out  of  which  the 
gulf-current  beats  only  as  one  pulse. 

The  difficulties  that  Christianity  has  now  are 
chiefly  in  great  cities.  They  are  in  the  unfaithful 
members  of  highly  civilized  society.  They  are  in  that 
subtle  and  pernicious  inactivity  which  undermines 
the  nervous  force  of  the  world  at  its  centres.  [Ap- 
plause.] 


ULBICI  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY.  305 


THE  LECTURE. 

De  Wette,  the  great  German  theologian,  who  died 
in  1849,  and  who  was  called  the  Universal  Doubter, 
said  in  his  last  work,  published  in  1848,  that  "  the 
fact  of  the  resurrection,  although  a  darkness  which 
cannot  be  dissipated  rests  on  the  way  and  manner  of 
it,  cannot  itself  be  called  into  doubt  "  any  more  than 
the  historical  certainty  of  the  assassination  of  Caesar 
(Ds  WETTE,  Concluding  Essay,  appended  to  His- 
torical Criticism  of  the  Evangelical  History,  p.  229). 
This  is  the  passage  over  which  Neander,  the  famous 
church  historian,  shed  tears  when  he  read  it.  De 
Wette  was  a  leader  of  the  acutest  school  of  ration- 
alism in  Germany  in  his  day,  and  denied  utterly  that 
there  are  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures 
predicting  the  coming  of  our  Lord.  He  was  coupled 
by  Strauss  himself  with  Vater,  as  having  placed  on 
a  solid  foundation  the  mythical  explanation  of  the 
Bible.  Nevertheless,  such  is  the  cumulative  force  of 
the  evidence  of  the  resurrection  as  a  fact  in  history, 
that  De  Wette,  listening  only  to  the  latest  voices  of 
the  most  laborious,  precise,  and  cold  research,  affirmed, 
face  to  face  with  the  sneers  of  the  rationalism  which 
he  led,  that  the  fact  itself,  although  we  do  not  under- 
stand the  way  and  manner  of  it,  is  incontrovertible. 

I  am  to  speak  this  morning,  not  of  this  fact,  but  of 
the  way  and  manner  of  it.  I  know  that  the  theme 
is  fit  to  blanch  the  cheeks. 

Before  taking  up  this  mystery  of  mysteries,  how- 
ever, let  us,  for  a  moment,  glance  at  the  logical  value 


306  BIOLOGY. 

of  De  Wette's  concession.  It  is  a  verdict  reached 
unwillingly  by  long  listening  to  all  the  public  and 
secret  words  of  history  and  philosophy  —  the  guides 
which  scepticism  is  so  eager,  and  which  religious  sci- 
ence may  well  be  yet  more  eager,  to  force  upon  the 
attention  of  the  world. 

I  am  accustomed  to  recite  as  a  part  of  my  private 
creed  these  propositions,  based  on  De  Wette's  con- 
cession as  to  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  :  — 

1.  The  intuitions  of   conscience  prove  the  moral 
excellence  of  the  biblical  system. 

2.  The  moral   excellence   of  the   biblical   system 
proves  that  it  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  attributes 
of  an  infinitely  perfect  Being  to  give  to  that  system 
a  supernatural  attestation. 

3.  If  an  historical  attestation  of  this  kind  has  been 
given  to  the  biblical  system,  the  existence  of  that 
attestation  may  be  proved  by  the  established  scien- 
tific rules  of  historical  criticism. 

4.  The   established  scientific    rules   of    historical 
criticism,  severely  applied,  demonstrate  the  fact  of 
the  resurrection. 

5.  The  fact  of  the  resurrection  proves,  not    the 
Deity,  but  the  Divine  authority  of  our  Lord,  as   a 
teacher  sent  into  history  with  a  supreme  and  divinely 
attested  religious  mission. 

6.  The  Divine  authority  of  our  Lord  proves  the 
doctrines  he  attested. 

7.  Among  these  are  his  Deity,  the  Inspiration  of 
the    Scriptures,    the   necessity   of  the    New   Birth, 
the  Atonement,  Immortality,  the  Eternal  Judgment. 
[Applause.] 


ULRICI  ON   THE   SPIRITUAL  BODY.  307 

It  was  my  fortune  once  to  put  these  propositions 
before  the  acutest  intellect  I  have  ever  met  in  the 
field  of  theology,  and  to  ask  if  they  would  bear  the 
logical  microscope.  I  remember,  that,  as  I  repeated 
them  slowly,  the  majestic  eyes  of  the  listener  were 
lifted  from  the  earth  to  the  horizon,  and  from  the 
horizon  to  the  infinite  spaces  of  the  Unseen  Holy 
behind  the  azure.  When  at  last  I  asked  if  De 
Wette's  verdict  did  not  contain  in  it  all  these  con- 
clusions, the  unwavering  reply  was,  "  All,  incontro- 
vertibly.  But  De  Wette's  concession  is  the  result  of 
the  conflicts  of  eighteen  centuries  of  scholarship. 
Adhere  to  those  propositions  ;  for  they  have  borne 
the  tooth  of  time  in  the  past,  and  will  bear  all 
the  buffeting  of  acutest  controversy  in  the  future." 
[Applause.]  Once  in  his  garden  at  Halle-on-the- 
Saale,  in  an  hour  I  shall  long  remember,  I  put  those 
propositions  before  Professor  Tholuck,  with  the  same 
emphatic  result. 

It  is  on  the  way  and  the  manner  of  the  personal 
continuance  of  the  soul  after  death  that  German 
philosophy  now  bends  an  intense,  prolonged,  reverent 
gaze.  You  will  not  suppose  me  to  indorse  every 
thing  which  I  put  before  you  this  morning  as  a  part 
of  the  latest  German  philosophy.  Nevertheless,  I 
confess  my  sympathy  with  the  whole  trend  of  that 
magnificent  body  of  thought  which  is  represented  by 
the  Lotzes,  the  Helmholtzes,  the  Wundts,  and  the 
Ulricis.  Whoever  is  in  accord  with  this  school, 
which  now  leads  the  most  intellectual  and  learned 
nation  of  our  times,  will  find  himself  in  most  em- 


308  BIOLOGY. 

phatic  antagonism  to  the  English  materialistic 
school.  This  latter,  however,  has  nothing  to  say 
that  is  new  to  Germany.  Gentlemen  here  who  have 
been  accustomed  to  form  their  philosophical  opinions 
from  an  English  outlook,  will,  perhaps,  allow  me  to 
•ask  them  this  morning,  for  once,  as  an  experiment, 
to .  occupy  the  German  point  of  view.  I  do  not 
request  you  to  take  the  opinions  of  the  Germans, 
though  they  have  a  far  greater  fame  than  the  Eng- 
lish for  philosophical  breadth  and  acumen ;  but 
will  you  not  take  their  point  of  view  long  enough 
to  understand  that  there  are  two  philosophies  in  the 
world  ?  If  there  is  one  represented  by  the  Huxleys 
and  Hackels,  there  is  another  opposed  at  all  points 
to  materialism,  and  represented  by  the  Lotzes  and 
Helmholtzes,  and  Wundts  and  Ulricis,  —  names 
which  the  future  is  far  more  likely  to  honor  than 
those  of  any  of  their  critics. 

1.  Lotze,  Ulrici,  Wundt,  Helmholtz,  Draper,  Car- 
penter, and  Beale  teach  that  the  nervous  mechanism 
in  its  influential  arc  is  plainly  so  constructed  that  we 
must  suppose  it  to  be  set  in  motion  by  an  agent  out- 
side of  it. 

2.  Every  change  must  have  an  adequate  cause. 

3.  Only  when  involution  is  equal  to  evolution  in  the 
connection  between  cause  and  effect  is  the  cause  ade- 
quate to  produce  the  effect. 

We  all  agree,  and  we  talk  smoothly,  as  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  tropically  fruitful  axiom,  that  every 
change  must  have  an  adequate  cause.  But  what  is 
an  adequate  cause  ?  My  definition,  which  I  do  not 


ULBICI  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY.  309 

ask  you  to  accept,  is,  Such  a  cause  as  maJces  involution 
equal  to  evolution.  Sir  William  Thomson,  speaking 
of  the  shrewd  attempt  of  materialism  to  explain 
living  tissues  by  infinitely  complex  molecular  combi- 
nations of  merely  material  particles,  says  it  is  forever 
sure  that  we  cannot  get  out  of  the  combinations  any 
thing  that  we  do  not  put  into  them ;  and  that  all 
science  is  against  the  idea  that  evolution  can  ever 
exceed,  in  the  force  or  the  design  it  exhibits,  the 
involution  which  must  go  before  the  evolution.  In- 
volution before  evolution  is  the  fact  on  which  to 
fasten  attention,  if  we  would  be  lifted  out  of  materi- 
alism. Let  us  be  involutionists  first,  and  evolutionists 
afterwards.  The  astute  attempt  of  Tyndall  is  to  put 
into  matter  what  he  wishes  to  draw  out  of  it.  His 
whole  effort  is  to  introduce  a  new  definition  of  mat- 
ter. He  would  have  us  think  of  matter  as  a  double- 
faced  somewhat,  having  a  material  and  spiritual  side ; 
and  although,  in  attempting  to  do  so,  we  necessarily 
fall  into  immeasurable  self-contradiction,  he  is  forced 
to  undertake  the  support  of  even  that,  because  he 
knows  that  evolution  cannot  be  greater  than  involu- 
tion. He  would  put  into  his  theory,  therefore,  on 
the  one  side,  that  power  and  potency  of  all  life  which 
he  wishes  to  take  out  on  the  other.  It  is  the  supreme 
law  of  philosophy  that  involution  and  evolution  are 
an  eternal  equation.  Materialism  is  marked  by  per- 
haps, nothing  more  superficial  than  the  attempt  to 
avoid  the  force  of  that  law  in  the  explanation  of 
living  tissues.  Even  Tyndall  (Materialism  and  its 
Opponents,  1875),  after  reasoning  in  favor  of  the 


310  BIOLOGY. 

theory  which  Professor  Frey,  the  German  histologist, 
says  science  has  given  up,  that  life  is  a  kind  of  vital 
crystallization,  says  inadvertently  with  curious  self- 
contradiction,  that  a  living  organism  is  "  woven  by 
a  something  not  itself."  Materialism  astounds  us 
by  the  assertion  that  physical  and  chemical  forces 
are  enough  to  explain  the  formation  of  living  tissues ; 
but  no  man  has  shown  that  in  physical  and  chemical 
forces  there  can  be  an  involution  equal  to  the  evolu- 
tion we  call  organism  and  life.  The  evolution  in 
man  is  intelligence,  imagination,  emotion,  will,  or  all 
that  we  call  the  soul ;  and  the  involution,  therefore, 
must  have  in  it 'the  equivalents  of  these  qualities. 
Forever  and  forever  it  will  be  true  that  you  can  find 
in  living  tissue,  and  take  out  of  it,  only  what  is  put 
into  it,  visibly  or  invisibly.  [Applause.] 

4.  The  nature  of  what  Aristotle  called  the  animat- 
ing principle,  or  the  soul,  is  to  be   inductively  in- 
ferred  by  an  inflexible  application  of  the  principle 
that   involution   must   equal   evolution.      In    living 
tissues,  as  everywhere  else,  every  change  must  have 
an  adequate  cause. 

5.  The  co-ordination  of  tissues  in  a  living  organ- 
ism must  proceed  from  a  sufficient  cause,  defined  as 
one  in  which  involution  is  equal  to  evolution,  and 
which  therefore  must  possess,  not  only  intelligence, 
but  permanence  and  unity  in  all  the   flux   of  the 
atoms  of  the  body. 

6.  The  unity  of  consciousness  requires  the  same. 

7.  The  persistence  of  the  sense  of  personal  iden- 
tity requires  the  same. 


ULBICI  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY.  311 

The  immense  facts  that  each  individual  feels  him- 
self to.  be  one,  and  that  his  identity  through  life  is  a 
certainty  in  spite  of  the  flux  of  the  particles  of  the 
body,  are  to  be  accounted  for.  It  is  enough  to  the 
acute  German,  born  a  metaphysician,  to  know  that 
he  has  an  ineradicable  sense  of  personal  identity,  and 
that  his  consciousness  is  a  unit,  to  cause  him  to  repel 
the  idea  that  all  we  call  the  soul  is  the  result  sim- 
ply of  an  almost  infinitely  complex  arrangement  of 
atoms.  Everywhere  there  is  permanent  unity  in  the 
plan  of  each  organism  that  has  life.  All  there  is  in 
the  oak  is  woven  after  the  fashion  of  the  oak ;  all  in 
the  lion,  after  that  of  the  lion ;  all  in  the  man,  after 
that  of  the  man.  We  do  know  incontrovertibly  that 
in  each  individual  there  is,  from  first  to  last,  no  devia- 
tion from  the  one  plan  on  which  the  bioplasts  weave. 
Now,  that  unity  must  be  accounted  for.  It  is  a  fact ; 
it  is  tangible  ;  it  is  visible. 

If  we  have  always  before  our  speculative  thought 
the  ascertained  activities  of  the  bioplasts ;  if  we 
behold  them  throwing  out  here  and  there  their  prom- 
ontories, dividing  and  subdividing,  and  yet  always 
weaving  on  a  plan  existing  in  the  first  stroke  of  their 
shuttles,  and  so  carrying  nerve  around  muscle,  and 
forming  here  a  vein,  and  there  an  artery,  here  a  tendon, 
and  there  a  hand,  an  ear,  an  eye,  a  brain,  —  we  shall 
feel  that  all  attempts  to  prove  materialism  by  physi- 
ology are  attempts  to  quench  the  noon  under  a  bat's 
wing.  [Applause.]  Ulrici  talks  freely  of  much 
sand  thrown  in  the  eyes  of  our  time  by  materialism ; 
and  so  do  Lotze  and  Helmholtz,  and  Wundt  and 


812  BIOLOGY. 

Beale ;  and  sometimes,  in  gusty  days,  I  think  there 
is  a  little  of  this  dust  even  in  this  pellucid  New-Eng- 
land air.  [Laughter.] 

8.  The  nature  of  the  animating  principle  has  of 
late,  in  Germany,  been  very  carefully  inferred  from 
the  effects  it  produces. 

It  is  the  belief  of  many  that  science  draws  near 
to  an  explanation  of  some  parts  of  the  mystery  in 
the  connection  of  the  soul  with  the  body. 

9.  The  late  German  philosophy  holds  the  view  that 
the  soul  must  be  conceived  as  a  property  or  occupant 
of  a  fluid  similar  to  the  ether. 

10.  This  fluid,  however,  does  not,  like  the  ether, 
consist  of  atoms. 

Elaborate  attempts  to  found  the  hope  of  existence 
after  death  on  the  scientific  certainty  that  atoms 
cannot  be  destroyed  have  often  been  made ;  and  an 
effort  of  this  sort  has  lately  appeared  in  the  work  of 
a  New- York  authoress  on  "  The  Physical  Basis  of 
Immortality."  She  adopts  Bain's  philosophy,  and 
talks  of  a  material  and  a  spiritual  side  in  an  atom ; 
and  she  says  that  somewhere  in  the  physical  organ- 
ism there  is  a  soul-atom,  and  that  this  cannot  be 
destroyed.  This  theory  is  German,  only  it  is  a  little 
out  of  date,  although  Lotze  once  favored  it.  (For 
Lotze's  present  views,  see  MikroJcosmus,  Drittes 
Buch,  Zweites  Kapitel,  Von  dem  Sitze  der  Seele,  Alle- 
gegenwart  der  Seele  im  Korper.)  There  are  two  com- 
peting theories,  —  that  of  the  soul-atom  and  that  of 
the  soul-fluid.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  non-atomic 
ether,  or  soul-fluid,  which  your  Ulrici  —  whose  Ger- 


TJLEICI  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY.  313 

man  book,  as  you  see,  I  read  to  pieces  in  a  hundred 
miles  in  the  railway-train  this  morning  —  advocates. 
By  the  way,  allow  me  to  say  that  Ulrici's  three  vol- 
umes, entitled  "  Gott  und  der  Mensch,"  published  at 
Leipzig  in  1874,  are  far  more  incisive  than  even  his 
"  Gott  und  die  Natur,"  on  all  topics  relating  to  living 
tissues  and  the  connection  between  soul  and  body. 
Be  sure  to  read  the  former  work,  especially  the  por- 
tion on  the  nervous  system  and  the  soul.  (Vol.  i.  pp. 
161-225;  see,  also,  UBERWEG'S  History  of  Philos- 
ophy, vol.  ii.  p.  303.) 

It  is  Ulrici's  view  that  the  soul  is  the  occupant 
of  a,  non-atomic  ether  that  fills  the  whole  form,  and 
lies  behind  the  mysterious  weaving  of  the  tissues. 

Who  is  Ulrici  ?  Not  a  small  philosopher,  I  assure 
you.  Hermann  Ulrici,  professor  of  philosophy  in 
the  University  of  Halle,  was  born  in  Germany  in 
1806.  He  studied  law  and  afterwards  physical  sci- 
ence in  the  stern  manner  of  the  German  universities, 
and  then  gave  himself  to  literature  and  philosophy. 
He  has  written  an  elaborate  work  on  aesthetics ;  and 
his  criticisms  on  Shakspeare  are  the  best,  except 
those  of  Gervinus.  Everywhere  in  Germany  he  is 
recognized  as  authorized  to  speak  on  the  nerves  and 
the  soul  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  specialist ;  and 
his  is,  perhaps,  the  highest  name  in  Germany,  after 
that  of  Lotze,  in  all  philosophy  connected  with  the 
relations  between  mind  and  matter. 

11.  This  non-atomic  fluid  is  absolutely  continuous 
with  itself. 

12.  Its  chief  centre  of  force  is  in  the  brain. 


314  BIOLOGY. 

13.  But  it  extends  outward  from  that  centre,  and 
permeates  the  whole  atomic  structure  of  the  body. 

Have  you  ever,  my  friends,  floated  in  thought 
above  the  green  and  steel  gray  seas  of  the  globe,  and 
called  vividly  before  your  imagination  the  contrast 
between  the  dark  depths  and  the  sunny  surfaces  of 
the  oceans?  The  upper  portions  of  every  ocean  are 
permeated  by  the  sunbeams ;  but,  as  we  descend  in 
the  Atlantic  or  Pacific,  we  come  to  obscurity ;  and, 
in  the  lowest  search  of  the  sea,  there  is  darkness. 
Just  so  in  the  connection  of  the  soul  with  the  body. 
There  is  a  sunny  sea,  an  obscure  sea,  and  a  dark  sea. 
A  portion  of  the  operations  of  the  immaterial  princi- 
ple in  us  we  are  vividly  cognizant  of  through  con- 
sciousness. A  few  of  the  activities  of  our  physical 
organization  we  are  conscious  of  obscurely ;  most 
of  them,  however,  and  all  this  weaving  of  tissues,  go 
on  wholly  below  consciousness.  There  seem  to  be 
mental  operations  that  proceed  in  the  darkness  of 
the  mental  Atlantic.  Some  go  on  obscurely  in  a 
region  of  partial  illumination.  But  intellect,  will,  emo- 
tion, belong  to  those  sunlit  waves  where  conscious- 
ness fills  the  billows  at  the  surface  of  the  mental 
ocean  with  iridescence.  You  will  readily  admit  that 
consciousness  does  not  make  us  aware  of  all  the 
activities  of  the  immaterial  principle.  That  unit 
which  we  call  the  soul  is  not  cognizant  of  all  its  own 
operations  as  it  is  conscious  of  memory  or  of  an  act 
of  reason.  Many  things  which  the  immaterial  prin- 
ciple in  man  does,  it  performs  in  the  dark  depths, 
where  no  man's  consciousness  comes,  and  yet  God  is 
there.  [Sensation.] 


ULRICI  ON   THE   SPIRITUAL   BODY.  315 

14.  The  soul,  as  an  occupant  of  this  ethereal  en- 
swarthment,  operates  in  part  unconsciously,  and  in 
part  consciously. 

15.  It  co-operates  with  the  vital  force. 

16.  It  is  not  identical  with  that  force. 

In  order  to  explain  living  tissues,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  assume  the  existence  of  what  is  called  vital  force ; 
but  it  is  necessary  to  assume  the  existence  of  an  imma- 
terial principle.  Hermann  Lotze  takes  great  pains, 
and  Ulrici  does,  to  show  that  the  immaterial  principle 
is  not  necessarily  to  be  thought  of  as  identical  with  what 
has  been  called  the  vital  force.  That  which  moves 
these  bioplasts,  and  causes  them  to  build  on  a  plan 
kept  in  view  from  the  first,  and  maintained  as  a  unit 
to  the  last,  we  say  must  be  an  adequate  cause  of 
these  motions ;  and  that  is  not  the  vital  force  sirapty, 
although  it  may  be  the  vital  force  with  this  other 
psychical  force  behind  it ;  and  yet  the  two  are  al- 
ways to  be  carefully  distinguished  from  each  other. 

17.  The  soul  has  a  different  type  for  each  different 
organism. 

As  it  were  folded  up,  it  exists,  of  course,  in  the 
embryonic  germ  of  each  organism,  —  oak,  lion,  eagle, 
or  man. 

18.  It  is  the  morphological  agent  which  weaves  all 
living  tissues.     It  spins  nerves.     It  weaves  the  mus- 
cles, the  tendons,  the  eye,  the   brain.     It   arranges 
each  part  in  harmony  with  all  the  other  parts  of  the 
organism. 

19.  When  it  rises  to  the  state  of  consciousness,  it 
produces  the  phenomena  known  as  thought,  imagina- 
tion, emotion,  and  will. 


316  BIOLOGY. 

20.  So  far  forth  as  the  ethereal  enswathement  of 
the  soul  is  non-atomic,  it  is  immaterial. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lecture- 
ship to  keep  before  this  audience,  so  many  members 
of  which  know  more  than  the  lecturer,  the  very 
latest  speculations,  if  they  lead  to  any  thing  strategic. 
You  will  allow  me  to  say  that  as  wise  men  as  Mar- 
tin eau  and  Ulrici  and  Beale  and  Lotze  and  Helm- 
hotze  do  not  sneer  at  the  idea  that  the  universe  may 
have  in  it  three  things,  and  not  merely  two.  Matter 
and  mind,  we  have  commonly  said,  include  every 
thing ;  but  some  are  whispering,  "  Perhaps  there  is 
an  invisible  middle  somewhat,  for  which  we  have  no 
name,  but  which  is  remotely  like  the  ether."  Is  it 
material  ?  It  is  not  atomic ;  and  matter  is.  Now, 
Ulrici  so  far  adopts  this  idea  as  to  affirm  explicitly 
that  the  ethereal  enswathement  of  the  soul  must  be 
non-atomic,  and  so  far  not  like  matter.  He  thinks 
that  the  atomic  constitution  of  this  enswathement 
would  be  absolutely  inconsistent  with  the  fact  of  the 
unity  of  consciousness.  He  holds,  that,  if  the  soul- 
fluid  be  made  up  of  atoms,  there  is  no  proof  that  it  is 
not  in  flux  with  the  flux  of  the  particles  of  the  body. 
But  the  persistence  of  our  sense  of  individuality  is 
proof  that  there  is  no  such  flux  in  the  substance  in 
which  mental  qualities  inhere.  We  know  that  there 
are  in  us  certain  mental  attributes,  and  that  every 
attribute  must  have  a  substratum ;  and  in  the  sub- 
stratum in  which  any  thing  permanent,  like  the  sense 
of  identity,  inheres,  there  must  be  no  flux,  but  per- 
manence. Therefore,  following  the  clew  that  every 


ULBICI  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY.  317 

change  must  have  an  adequate  cause,  Ulrici  holds 
that  the  enswathement  of  the  soul,  this  ethereal  body, 
is  non-atomic,  and  not  in  flux. 

Just  as  the  summer  lightning  blazes  through  the 
cloud,  so  the  soul  blazes  through  that  spiritual  body 
which  is  finer  than  nervous  tissue,  finer  than  elec- 
tricity. When  the  egg  begins  to  quicken,  the  life  is 
the  chief  thing  in  it,  and  that  life  belongs  to  a  cer- 
tain somewhat,  an  ethereal  form  of  matter  that  con- 
nects it  with  all  this  dead  world  around.  The  soul 
inhering  in  that  spiritual  body  takes  to  itself  cloth- 
ing, and  builds  the  visible  matter  upon  the  invisible. 
According  to  the  law  of  the  invisible  matter,  accord- 
ing to  its  power  to  take  large  or  small  space  as  its 
exigences  require,  it  grows,  for  a  season,  larger  and 
larger,  until  the  soul  in  it  has  taken  clothing  to  itself 
out  of  this  visible  world.  We  appear  here  as  ghosts 
appear  in  the  night.  Carlyle  says  we  are  all  ghosts  ; 
we  appear,  we  disappear ;  we  come  forth  from  the 
invisible,  we  go  into  the  invisible.  These  are  facts  ; 
but  Germany  begins  to  speculate  as  to  the  adequate 
causes  of  our  being  woven  as  we  are,  and  says,  that, 
behind  all  the  weaving  of  our  tissues,  there  must  be 
this  ethereal  body.  Why  does  she  say  that  ?  Ger- 
many commonly  has  a  reason  for  her  positions. 

There  is  Niagara.  You  see  a  rainbow  drawn  across 
the  surface  of  the  cataract.  The  rainbow  does  not 
move.  The  water  moves.  What  is  the  cause  of 
the  rainbow?  The  water,  you  say.  No!  Germany 
replies;  the  rainbow  never  moves.  If  the  water 
were  the  chief  cause  of  the  rainbow,  the  rainbow 


318  BIOLOGY. 

would  move ;  for  you  must  have  in  the  fountain 
what  you  have  in  the  source.  The  occasion  of  the 
rainbow  is  in  the  water;  the  cause  is  in  the  sun. 
That  is  not  in  flux.  Your  rainbow  is  not  in  motion, 
either.  Now,  the  plan  of  man's  organism  does  not 
change  from  the  first  quickening  of  the  egg  until  the 
man  drops  into  the  grave.  It  is  one  thing,  just  as  that 
rainbow  is  one  thing.  Our  sense  of  identity  persists. 
Nevertheless,  all  the  particles  in  the  body  are  changing 
as  the  drops  in  Niagara  are.  The  cause  of  our  sense 
of  personal  identity  must  be  something  that  is  not  in 
perpetual  change.  Your  fountain  cannot  rise  higher 
than  your  source.  The  plan  of  your  mechanism  does 
not  change,  arid  so  the  source  of  that  plan  does 
change.  We  know  that  every  coarser  physical  par- 
ticle does  change.  There  is  nothing  in  my  hand 
that  was  there  seven  years  ago,  I  suppose,  except  the 
plan  of  the  material.  The  particles  have  all  been 
changed ;  but  the  plan  is  just  the  same.  That  plan 
which  does  not  change  implies  the  existence  in  man 
of  a  substance  which  does  not  change ,  and,  although 
that  substance  is  invisible,  science  thinks  it  is  there 
because  it  sees  effects  which  can  be  explained  only 
upon  that  supposition. 

We  know  that  the  rainbow  is  not  in  flux,  and  so 
we  know  there  is  something  behind  it  which  causes 
it  to  persist  in  one  form.  As  the.  plan  of  your  eagle, 
your  lion,  your  man,  your  oak,  is  steadily  adhered  to 
from  first  to  last,  we  say  that  plan  belongs  to  some- 
thing that  is  not  in  flux,  that  came  in  when  the  plan 
threw  its  first  shuttle,  and  goes  out  unimpaired,  even 


ULKICI  ON  THE   SPIRITUAL  BODY.  319 

after  the  shuttle  ceases  to  move.  That  invisible  some- 
what some  scholars  in  Germany  call  a  spiritual  body. 

21.  This  non-atomic  ethereal  enswathement  of  the 
soul  is  conceivably  separable  from  the  body. 

How  shall  I  proceed,  gentlemen,  when  thoughts 
crowd  upon  us  here  and  now  that  soon  will  seem  too 
sacred  even  for  the  hushed  chambers  from  which 
you  and  I  must  pass  hence,  each  alone  ?  Who  has 
treated  death  inductively  ?  What  do  the  dying  see  ? 
What  do  they  hear?  What  do  they  fear,  and  what 
do  they  hope  ?  I  am  asking  of  you  only  loyalty  to 
the  self-evident  truth,  that  every  change  must  have 
an  adequate  cause.  The  Ariadne  clew  has  now 
brought  us  mercilessly  up  to  the  certainty  that  the 
adequate  cause  of  all  this  weaving  of  living  tissues 
must  be  something  having  unity ;  something  not  in 
flux  with  the  constant  changes  of  the  particles  of  the 
body ;  something  that  is  as  steady  as  the  rainbow 
drawn  across  the  east,  while  all  the  drops  of  rain  are 
rapidly  changing  their  position. 

It  is  not  every  untrained  or  trained  mind  that  is 
able  to  follow  even  this  axiomatic  Ariadne  clew 
through  all  this  labyrinth  of  philosophy.  Sometimes 
I  think  that  philosophers  are  to  be  divided  into 
classes  like  generals,  according  to  their  capacity  to 
manage  intricate  problems.  There  are  generals  that 
can  command  ten  thousand  men ;  but  Napoleon  said, 
there  are  only  a  few  who  can  command  five  hundred 
thousand.  There  are  intricacies  in  philosophy  which 
it  takes  a  Lotze  or  an  Ulrici,  a  Kant  or  a  Hamilton, 
a  Helmholtz  or  a  Beale,  to  walk  through  without 


320  BIOLOGY. 

bewilderment.  Adhere  to  the  writers  who  are  clear. 
Many  a  general  on  the  field  of  philosophy  can  take 
care  of  ten  thousand  ;  but  only  now  and  then  one  can 
manage  five  hundred  thousand  men. 

If  you  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  an  in- 
visible, non-atomic,  ethereal  enswathement,  which 
the  soul  fills,  and  through  which  it  flashes  more 
rapidly  than  electricity  through  any  cloud,  you  must 
remember  that  the  majestic  authority  for  that  state- 
ment is  simply  the  axiom  that  every  change  must 
have  an  adequate  cause.  This  is  cool  precision  ;  this 
is  exact  research  on  the  edge  of  the  tomb.  Professor 
Beale  says  in  so  many  words,  "  that  the  force  which 
weaves  these  tissues  must  be  separable  from  the 
body ; "  for  it  very  plainly  is  not  the  result  of  the 
action  of  physical  agents.  Ulrici  shows,  especially  in 
a  magnificent  passage  on  immortality  (G-ott  und  der 
Menseh,  vol.  i.  pp.  222-225),  that  all  the  latest  results 
of  physiological  research  go  to  show  that  immortality 
is  probable. 

You  say,  that,  unless  we  can  prove  the  existence 
of  something  for  the  substratum  of  mind,  we  may  be 
doubtful  about  the  persistency  of  memory  after 
death ;  but  what  if  this  non-atomic,  ethereal  body 
goes  out  of  the  physical  form  at  death  ?  In  that 
case,  what  materialist  will  be  acute  enough  to  show 
that  memory-  does  not  go  out  also  ?  You  affirm,  that, 
without  matter,  there  can  be  no  activity  of  the  mind  ; 
and  that,  although  the  mind  may  exist  without 
matter,  it  cannot  express  itself.  You  say,  that  unless 
certain,  I  had  almost  said  material,  records  remain  in 


TTLRICI  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  BODY.  321 

possession  of  the  soul  when  it  is  out  of  the  body, 
there  must  be  oblivion  of  all  that  occurred  in  this 
life.  But  how  are  you  to  meet  the  newest  form  of 
science,  which  gives  the  soul  a  non-atomic  enswathe- 
ment  as  the  page  on  which  to  write  its  records  ? 
That  page  is  never  torn  up.  The  acutest  philosophy 
is  now  pondering  what  the  possibilities  of  this  non- 
atomic,  ethereal  body,  are  when  separated  from  the 
fleshy  body  ;  and  the  opinion  of  Germany  is  coming 
to  be  very  emphatic,  that  all  that  materialists  have 
said  about  our  memory  ending  when  our  physical 
bodies  are  dissolved,  and  about  there  being  no  possi- 
bility of  the  activity  of  the  soul  in  separation  from 
the  physical  body,  is  simply  lack  of  education. 
There  is  high  authority  and  great  unanimity  on  the 
propositions  I  am  now  defending ;  and  although  I 
do  not  pledge  myself  always  to  defend  every  one  of 
these  theses,  yet  I  must  do  so  in  the  present  state 
of  knowledge  and  in  the  name  of  a  Gulf-current  of 
speculation  which  is  twenty-five  years  old,  and  has 
a  very  victorious  aspect  as  we  look  backward  to  the 
time  when  the  microscope  began  its  revelations. 

22.  It  becomes  clear,  therefore,  that,  even  in  that 
state  of  existence  which  succeeds  death,  the  soul  may 
have  a  spiritual  body. 

What !  You  are  preaching  to  us  the  book  called 
the  Holy  Word  ?  Yes,  I  am  ;  and  here  is  a  page  of 
it  [with  a  hand  on  colored  diagrams  of  living  tissues]. 
[Applause.]  A  spiritual  body !  That  is  a  phrase 
we  did  not  expect  to  hear  in  the  name  of  science. 
It  is  the  latest  whisper  of  science,  and  ages  ago  it 
was  a  word  of  revelation.  [Applause.] 


322  BIOLOGY. 

23.  The   existence   of    that    body  preserves   the 
memories  acquired  during  life  in  the  flesh. 

24.  If  this  ethereal,  non-atomic  enswathement  of 
the  soul  be  interpreted  to  mean  what  the  Scriptures 
mean  by  a  spiritual  body  in  distinction  from  a  natural 
body,  there  is  entire  harmony  between  the  latest  re- 
sults of  science   and   the   inspired   doctrine  of  the 
resurrection.     [Applause.] 

What  if  I  should  dissect  a  human  body  here  ?  I 
might  have  a  man  made  up  of  a  skeleton;  then  I 
could  have  a  human  form  made  up  of  muscle.  If 
I  should  take  out  the  arteries,  I  should  have  another 
human  form  ;  and  just  so  with  the  veins,  and  so  with 
the  nerves.  Were  they  all  taken  out  and  held  up 
here  in  their  natural  condition,  they  would  have  a 
human  form,  would  they  not  ?  Very  well ;  now, 
which  form  is  the  man  ?  Which  is  the  most  impor- 
tant ?  But  behind  the  nerves  are  those  bioplasts. 
If  I  could  take  out  those  bioplasts  that  wove  the 
nerves,  and  hold  them  up  here  by  the  side  of  the 
nerves,  all  in  their  natural  position,  they  would  have 
a  human  form,  would  they  not  ?  And  which  is  the 
man  ?  Your  muscles  are  more  important  than  your 
bones ;  your  arteries,  than  your  muscles ;  your  nerves, 
than  your  arteries;  and  your  bioplasts,  that  wove 
your  nerves,  are  more  important  than  your  nerves. 
But  you  do  not  reach  the  last  analysis  here  ;  for,  if 
you  unravel  a  man  completely,  there  is  something 
behind  those  bioplasts.  There  are  many  things  we 
cannot  see  that  we  know  exist.  I  know  there  is  in 
my  body  a  nervous  influence  that  plays  up  and  down 


ULBICI  ON  THE   SPIRITUAL  BODY.  323 

my  nerves  like  electricity  on  the  telegraphic  wires. 
I  never  saw  it ;  I  have  felt  it.  Suppose  that  I  could 
take  that  out.  Suppose  that  just  there  is  my  man 
made  up  of  nerves,  and  just  yonder  my  man  made  up 
of  red  bioplasts ;  and  that  I  have  right  here  what  I  call 
the  nervous  influence  separated  entirely  from  flesh. 
You  would  not  see  it,  would  you?  But  would  not 
this  be  a  man  very  much  more  than  that  ?  or  that  ? 
What  if  death  thus  dissolves  the  innermost  from  the 
outermost  ?  We  absolutely  know  that  that  nervous 
influence  is  there.  We  know,  also,  that  there  is 
something  behind  the  action  of  these  bioplasts.  If  I 
could  take  out  this,  which  is  a  still  finer  thing  than 
what  we  call  nervous  influence,  and  could  have  it 
held  up  here,  I  do  not  know  but  that  it  would  be 
ethereal  enough  to  go  into  heaven;  for  the  Bible 
itself  speaks  of  a  spiritual  body.  You  know  it  is 
there,  this  nervous  influence.  You  know  it  is  there, 
this  power  behind  the  bioplasts.  When  the  Bible 
speaks  of  a  spiritual  body,  it  does  not  imply  that 
the / soul  is  material;  it  does  not  teach  materialism 
at  all ;  it  simply  implies  that  the  soul  has  a  glori- 
fied enswathement,  which  will  accompany  it  in  the 
next  world.  I  believe  that  it  is  a  distinct  biblical 
doctrine  that  there  is  a  spiritual  body  as  there  is  a 
natural  body,  and  that  the  former  has  extraordinary 
powers.  It  is  a  body  which  apparently  makes  noth- 
ing of  passing  through  what  we  call  ordinary  mat- 
ter. Our  Lord  had  that  body  after  his  resurrection. 
He  appeared  suddenly  in  the  midst  of  his  disciples, 
although  the  doors  were  shut.  He  had  on  Him  the 


324  BIOLOGY. 

scars  that  were  not  washed  out,  and  that  in  heaven 
had  not  grown  out.  I  tread  here  upon  the  edge  of 
immortal  mysteries  ;  but  the  great  proposition  I  wish 
to  emphasize  is,  that  science,  in  the  name  of  the 
microscope  and  the  scalpel,  begins  to  whisper  what 
revelation  ages  ago  uttered  in  thunders,  that  there  is 
a  spiritual  body  with  glorious  capacities. 

This  is  a  sad  world  if  death  is  a  leap  in  the  dark. 
But,  gentlemen,  we  are  following  haughty  axio- 
matic certainty.  In  clear  and  cool  precision,  science 
comes  to  the  idea  of  a  spiritual  body.  We  must  not 
forget  that  this  conclusion  is  proclaimed  in  the  name 
of  philosophy  -of  the  severest  sort.  The  verdict  is 
scientific :  it  happens  also  to  be  biblical.  Is  it  the 
worse  for  that  ?  It  is  more  and  more  evident,  as  the 
training  of  the  world  advances,  that  every  thing  fun- 
damentally biblical  is  scientific,  and  that  every  thing 
fundamentally  scientific  is  biblical.  [Applause.] 

In  every  leaf  on  the  summer  boughs  there  is  a 
network  which  may  be  dissolved  out  of  the  verdant 
portion,  and  yet  retain  as  a  ghost  the  shape  which  it 
gave  the  leaf  from  which  it  came.  In  every  human 
form  growing  as  a  leaf  on  the  tree  Igdrasil,  we  know 
that  network  lies  within  network.  Each  web  of 
organs,  if  taken  separately,  would  have  a  form  like 
that  of  man.  There  might  be  placed  by  itself  the 
muscular  portion  of  the  human  form,  or  the  osseous 
portion,  or  the  veins,  or  the  arteries,  and  each  would 
show  the  human  shape.  If  the  nerves  could  be  dis- 
solved out,  and  held  up  here,  they  would  be  a  white 
form,  coincident  everywhere  with  the  mysterious, 


ULRICI  ON  THE   SPIRITUAL  BODY.  325 

human,  physical  outline.  But  the  invisible  nervous 
force  is  more  ethereal  than  this  ghost  of  nerves. 
The  fluid  in  which  the  nervous  waves  occur  is  finer 
than  the  nervous  filaments.  What  if  it  could  be 
separated  from  its  environment,  and  held  up  here  ? 
It  could  not  be  seen ;  it  could  not  be  touched. 
The  hand  might  be  passed  through  it ;  the  eyes  of 
men  in  their  present  state  would  detect  no  trace 
of  it ;  but  it  would  be  there. 

Your  Ulricis,  your  Lotzes,  your  Beales,  adhere  un- 
flinchingly to  the  scientific  method.  The  self-evident 
axiom,  that  every  change  must  have  an  adequate 
cause,  requires  us  to  hold  that  there  exists  behind 
the  nerves  a  non-atomic,  ethereal  enswathement  for 
the  soul,  which  death  dissolves  out  from  all  com- 
plex contact  with  mere  flesh,  and  which  death,  thus 
unfettering  without  disembodying,  leaves  free  before 
God  for  all  the  development  with  which  God  can 
inspire  it.  [Applause.] 

"  Then  long  Eternity  shall  greet  our  bliss 
With  an  individual  kiss, 
And  joy  shall  overtake  us  as  a  flood, 
When  every  thing  that  is  sincerely  good 

And  perfectly  divine, 
With  Truth  and  Peace  and  Love,  shall  ever  shine 

About  the  supreme  throne 
Of  Him  to  whose  happy-making  sight,  alone, 
When  once  our  heavenly-guided  souls  shall  climb 

Then,  all  this  earthly  grossness  quit, 

Attired  in  stars  we  shall  forever  sit, 
Triumphing  over  Death  and  Chance  and  thee,  O  Time! " 

MILTON. 


T( 

LC 


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